After flood
by kaktusic
Summary: If you like Diego all cuddly and harmless, DO NOT read this! Some descriptive violence here! though not worse than what we see in documentaries... And some yucky stuff, too. Oscar and Diego meet after the Ice Age2. Not slash.
1. Disclaimer

First of all, I want to thank **debit13** and **FABCHICKXO** for their kind words in times when I was miserable as I have never been in my life. It meant the world to me. Thank you so very much!!!

As for the story…of all my stories, I'm the least satisfied with this one. Still, I decided to post it, and the reason is this: I wrote it when I was facing two surgery procedures and the possibility of malignat disease. Writing this was one thing thet kept my mind busy and was at least partially soothing the fear I was otherwise drowning in. That's the reason why it's so long and dull; I wanted it to last.

When it was all over, I could have shortened it, but as stupid as it seems, I wanted to keep it the way it was as some kind of, dunno, tribute (in loss for a better word) to power of words. It helped me to stay sane; that seemed like a reason good enough to keep it s it originally was.

Oh,and, if you think that it should be M rated, please let me know!

Thank you, **debit13** and **FABCHICKXO, **once again!


	2. Chapter 1

**I don't own Ice Age characters. Only Jerry, his mate and Milo are mine, though I give you full freedom to do with them whatever you want. **

***

„I'm tellin'ya, we're safe here, baby!" a large stag with an impressive pair of antlers assured his doe as they grazed on a particularly rich patch on grass, growing among large rocks on the very end of the valley. "This is still a forbidden area for him."

"Aren't we pushing it a bit too close, Jerry?" the doe asked, anxiously turning her ears in all directions. "Just a few more steps and we're out! We, we really should go back…"

"Cool off, baby", the stag puffed his chest. "_I_ am here, right? I'm telling ya that the saber won't as much as pluck a hair from our pelts while we're still within the boundaries. Enjoy the dinner and save your energy; you're gonna need it later" and he nudged her in her side affectionately.

"But…other predators might…I'd rather be closer to the village, to the mammoths-"

"The tiger left his marks all across the valley, and further. No saber will dare trespass that, and all other predators stay clear of sabers as much as we do. Trust me, baby-"

"Er…Jerry?"

"And even if any predator would dare coming here, ya think I'd let 'em harm you?"

"Jerry-"

"I mean, I have these antlers for a good reason, baby, it's not all about animal magnetism for ya females-"

"Jerry!"

"-I'd like ta see a hunter who'd be so stupid to piss me out; I'd just go right between 'em eyes and-"

"_Jerry_!"

"-I mean, what's bigger, my antlers, or those two little teeth he has? Size _does_ matter, you know-"

But his words were spoken to thin air, since his likely-to-be-mate had sprinted away as fast as her long legs would carry her, wide eyed, dust raising behind her.

"No, no, wait! I didn't mean it _that_ way…oh, crap…well…_females_. Riddle me _that_…" he sighed irritably and, knowing better than pursuing an unwilling mate, he turned back to the patch of grass. At least he still had dinner.

And he found himself facing a large, tawny-and-white feline face, long sabers and all, staring at him with unfamiliar yellowish- green eyes.

It took several seconds for realization to hit him; several seconds in which the hunter was staring at him with glassy, bloodshot eyes, and any mocking remark Jerry had saved for Diego got stopped short somewhere between his brain and his tongue.

"AAAAHHHH!!!!" he bleated, jumping back so vigorously that he lost footage, slipped and hit a large boulder with his back, while the large cat continued to stare; the deer sprang back to his hooves and, not bothering to wonder why he wasn't dead already, he ran away, towards the village, with speed that was bound to have him overrun his doe; "THAT'S NOT HIM!!! HELP! HEEEELP!!! RUN! MANNY!!! SABERS ATTACK!!!"

The saber looked after him. That stag would have made a great meal. But it no longer concerned Oscar. Those two didn't need to worry. It wasn't prey he was looking for now.

The big predator dragged himself further among the rocks, with unsteady, drunken, slow steps. His breathing was shallow, fast and maddeningly painful. The right side of his wide chest was giving him hell with every breath; try as he might, he couldn't breathe as shallow as his chest would have liked it. The fact that he was shaking with fever didn't help matters one bit; every bone in his body was aching, every muscle burning, his eyesight long gone all patchy and blurry, and he was only moving on driven by his considerable willpower. He couldn't rest here; he had this urge, as strong and demanding as his unquenchable thirst had been lately; the urge to find some secluded, quiet, dark and hidden place. That was the only thing that kept Oscar moving. To find a place dark and hidden. Yes. That was what he needed to find.

When flood had hit the lands, Oscar got separated from Zeke and Lenny. Trying not to drown, he'd held onto a large branch, but he could do nothing about the current of water carrying both him and his branch dangerously fast towards rocky cliffs. He hit the rock hard with his right chest and the branch slammed into him, making him- quite literally- stuck between a rock and a hard place. He didn't let go of the branch, but the searing pain he felt was strong enough for him to realize that this would be no ordinary bump. The blood he coughed up confirmed that.

The flood didn't last, but his problems had only just started.

The pain didn't subside -on the contrary; it only got worse with each passing day; it wouldn't let him breathe, let alone hunt. At first, there were plenty of carcasses of animals that weren't lucky enough to survive the flood for him to feed upon, but he wasn't the only scavenger around, and the food supply soon became short for him. And then the fever started to shake him, making his broken ribs feel like something was grinding his chest into shards, and in his bouts of agonizingly painful coughing, he no more came up only with blood, but with whitish-yellow pus as well. And the thirst was killing him. Puddles of water were everywhere, but it seemed that no amount of water could satisfy his raw, parched throat.

When he first started having hallucinations- namely, his dead mate flashing her toothy, white smile before him, and disappearing as soon as he'd blinked- he felt that the time came for him to move his butt away from the general audience. Especially from the three vultures that took an irritating habit of following his slow progress during the past couple of days.

Now he was crawling among the huge rocks, still followed by the vultures' ominous eyes, and searched for a place that would suit him, someplace he could lay himself down and rest without the nuisance of prying eyes and hungry beaks.

And he found it; a dark, narrow hole among the rocks, a nice, secluded place, just enough for him to crawl into, to lie on his injured side- it hurt less when he kept it at least partially immobilized between the ground and his own body weight- and to keep having hallucinations about his mate, their many cubs, their old pack…

He sighed, resting his too- warm head against the cool stone surface. Yes, this was a place dark and hidden enough; it would do.

The vultures settled themselves on a dry tree nearby. Silent and waiting.


	3. Chapter 2

Oscar dreamed.

He wasn't sure if those were dreams or hallucinations, but whatever they were, they were certainly better than his immediate reality. They included his children, young and happy and tiny as they were as cubs, even if they had all long grown up and left Soto's pack; he saw his oldest daughter running to his side and nudging him to play with her, and he almost smiled…almost cried…he hadn't seen her in years.

Unfortunately, the hallucination dispersed with a blink of an eye, and he was left to gasp for breath, awake and feverish and thirsty. He closed his eyes again, and after a period of darkness, he saw Lenny and Zeke watching him, calling for him to help them; messy and clumsy as they were, they couldn't survive without leadership, even if the said leadership had been as poor as Oscar's.

He squeezed his eyes tight, not wanting to see _that_. He'd screwed up royally, he really did; first, he failed to protect his mate from the humans, then he failed to stop Soto in his lunatic pursue of the human baby, then he failed to recognize Diego's duplicity- Diego, that two-faced, traitorous _bastard-_ and now he'd failed to keep safe the last of his remaining comrades. Good thing that his children couldn't see him now. What a disgrace he was. He had been.

Another hallucination came, though blurry and distant; Soto, still the powerful, wise leader of their pack, and happy, too; Soto who gave them all the feeling of being safe and secure, Soto, still able to smile, because his mate was still alive and well, Soto in the days when everything was still…normal.

The hallucination faded away as his eyes closed again. The blur of imaginary scents and sounds followed- the scent of his mother, his brothers, his mate, their cubs, their old friends, Zeke, Soto, even Diego, Lenny…he thought he could hear the mewing of newborn cubs and roaring of their proud fathers; either Soto or himself, he couldn't say…the scent of milk…scent of fresh blood…scent of…wet moss?

Another hallucination, of course- but such a convenient one. It came to him when his dry throat really wanted it; it was so close and real that his tongue instantly lashed out to taste it. He couldn't see anything, but he felt, _really_ felt the water-soaked patch of moss right under his nose, and he greedily suckled on it. It felt good. How interesting. He'd never thought that hallucinations could be so…vivid.

And when his eyes temporarily cleared enough to see, he was welcomed by a most unpleasant of hallucinations until that point.

There, right in front of his hiding place, very solid-looking and unmoving, in all his hated might, stood Diego.

He hadn't changed much since they parted ways; he was just perhaps a bit thinner, but otherwise healthy-looking; much healthier than he'd deserved. That duplicitous, rotten, betraying…

"Wha'cha doin' 'ere, scum?" Oscar growled, barely managing to find his voice, unused for so long. And it bloody hurt. "Getta 'ell awa' from ma' private 'allucination'."

And he closed his eyes firmly shut. That was one member of his former pack he really wasn't looking forward to seeing again, real or not. But, unlike other hallucinations, when he opened his eyes, the bloody bastard was still there, as solid and realistic-looking as Oscar had ever seen him, looking down at Oscar with those cursed eyes of his.

"One bloody irritatin' an' contrary' whelp, eve' as 'allucination, eh?" Oscar growled on. "Well, if y'don'mind, I'd like t' keep on hallucinatin' 'bout my mate an' cubs, so kindly piss off."

He closed his eyes again, and didn't see anything for a certain amount of time.

Then it started again. Through flashes of red and blurs of gray and black, he saw his friends and family again, alive and healthy; he was again a young cub, learning to hunt, and his mother was looking down at him and his brothers with warm, loving eyes…he was a proud, young hunter, eager to prove himself, and was doing incredibly foolish things to get one look of a beautiful dark-furred tigress from a friendly pack…they were parents for the first time, they had two cubs, two daughters…Soto became the leader of the pack, and a darn good leader he was…his children grew up, and another litter came, and another after that…Zeke was there, happy for a change, that poor sack of wretched nerves, and he was saying: 'you done well, Oscar, old pal; you done well'…Diego, a cub when they found him, with big green eyes that made all females swoon instantly; even as a bloody baby, that piece of work knew instantly how to get under everybody's skin…Lenny, still a cub too, grinning stupidly, yawning at the sun…hunts, scent of blood, taste of flesh, pride of being a part of the pack…

…wet moss, again?

His eyes creaked open while he sucked at it thirstily; again, there was Diego, grown-up this time, and again, looking more real than any of the others…

"Persistent, eh?" Oscar snarled at him. "Toldya t' keep away from me private 'allucinations…"

Diego was silent. Oscar drifted away again.

Scents and images flowed; touch of fur against his own; milky scent of cubs; strong, proud voices of his packmates; breath of a female on his neck; warmth of her tongue on his nozzle; panicked voices of hunted prey; scent of blood…

…very realistic scent on blood, just like that water-soaked moss had been; those hallucinations were actually a good thing, bringing him exactly what he needed the most at the time. He couldn't see, but his tongue tasted blood- actually tasted it- and he licked greedily on it; it went smoothly down his throat…too bad that it was only his fever-addled brain playing games with him…but he didn't have anything against it, as long as it was making his departure from this world so much easier.

Next he thought he'd heard a familiar sound, though long unheard; a sound of food being regurgitated for a cub to feed before they can eat solid meat. He really, _really_ missed his parenting days if he was having hallucinations like this…

And then he was cub again himself, having pulpy meat shoved down his throat, and perhaps he'd actually called out for his mom, though he couldn't be certain if he'd managed to produce a sound, or it was again only in his head…at least the pain was now distant; _everything_ was getting distant, and then there were no more sounds, scents or images for him; as if he'd been wrapped in a soft fuzz, he sank, without pain, into blackness.

**

Agonizing headache was the first thing that Oscar became aware of. The terrible thirst was the next.

The light of noon sun was beating mercilessly right into his eyes; he groaned and tried to cover his face with his paw, but was instantly cut short by the searing pain in his ribs. One sharp intake of breath caused a bout of cough, mind-blowingly painful, wet, raspy and seemingly never-ending; it finally ended with him coughing up a disgusting mess of brownish, old blood and yellowish muck. The sight of it made his stomach turn, and he squeezed his eyes shut; coughing was painful enough, vomiting would make him pass out with pain again.

Great. Just bloody _great_. So the fever hadn't managed to finish him off. He'd missed the opportunity to go away in relatively painless peace of his hallucinations. Now he was doomed to slow, painful death of hunger and thirst…he laid, panting, drained of whatever little strength he had left, for a couple of minutes before he realized that something had shadowed the sun.

He opened one tired eye, not really caring which scavenger he'd find looming over him. He only hoped it would be something big and efficient enough to finish him off quickly.

Through the blurry curtain of his vision, he made out the orange-colored pelt and green eyes of another saber.

He blinked.

The saber was quiet. He- or she, Oscar's tired eyes couldn't tell- scraped up some dirt from the ground and covered Oscar's mess with it; then turned around and disappeared from view.

Oscar blinked several times more. It didn't help much for his vision to clear, or for his head to stop hammering. And it didn't bring the saber back. His nose was- at least for now- of no help; the fever seemed to have scorched it to the point of complete uselessness; he couldn't smell a pile of mammoth dung if it landed right before his nose. Another hallucination…?

He'd probably blacked out again, because the next thing he knew, there was blood dripping on his nose from a freshly killed fawn that hung suspended in mid-air above his head.

His head snapped up, sending a shot of familiar pain down his chest, but Oscar didn't care. He blinked owlishly at the prey above him, blood dripping from his nose, realizing slowly that it was a saber that was holding the prey dangling above him. This time, though, Oscar recognized the younger tiger, and instantly dismissed him as a hallucination.

"You again", he rasped out. "Have nobody else's death t' make it miserable? Told y' I want ya t' keep away from m' final thoughts…"

Diego- looking uncomfortably real and bloodstained- unceremoniously dropped the kill in front of Oscar, giving him a dirty look in the process.

"Eat", he growled quietly, and moved several paces away, seating himself on a large rock and starting to meticulously clean himself of blood.

Oscar decided that he might as well take the best from this very realistic hallucination and took his time on quenching his thirst on the fawn's blood. For imaginary blood, it served the purpose quite well. When it came about eating, however, he found himself simply too weak to tear a bite off the prey's flesh. He frowned in frustration, trying to claw his way into the fawn's soft belly, but he was unable even for such an easy task. He was as weak as a newborn cub, he realized, and sighed tiredly, leaning his aching head on the ground again. Never mind. Even the imaginary prey was too much for him to handle. He never thought he'd die like this, sick, alone and pathetic. He'd thought he'd die in a hunt, or in a duel, or in a fight with humans. This was such a humiliating way for a hunter to leave.

He felt a movement nearby. Diego was still there; he didn't vanish, no matter how many times Oscar blinked. The older tiger growled with frustration. Why, why was he doomed to spend his final hours in the imaginary presence of that worthless traitor? Of all those good tigers he'd met in his life, why him, _why_? Anybody would be better than him. Anybody and anything.

The imaginary traitor was now watching Oscar with inscrutable expression on his hated face. He got to his paws and in one big leap, he was at Oscar's side again. He appeared to be angry now, and a little bit disgusted.

"Enjoyin' yerself?" Oscar whispered.

Without a word, Diego bit on the fawn, ripped off a piece of flesh and dropped it on Oscar's front paws.

Oscar frowned. His heart started to pick up speed. The flesh appeared very real, and so did Diego's disdainful face.

Diego sighed and rolled his eyes. "_Eat_, Oscar, before the whole pack of scavengers rushes here to claim the kill."

"Yer _real_…" Oscar whispered. "Y'aint…a hallucination?"

"Brilliant observation skills. Now eat, or I'll do it instead of you."

Oscar wanted to do many things, none of which included eating anything Diego have provided him. He wanted to strike out and claw at Diego's face; he wanted to rip his traitorous throat out; he wanted to call him all kind of hateful names and kill him, slowly, for betraying his pack and his dead ones, for betraying his very species and being a shame and disgrace for all predators that ever lived, for surviving the injury that Soto had given him and that would have served him right if it had killed him, for having Oscar unrighteously overranked in their old pack and, most of all, for being so thoroughly cunning in his two-sidedness that Oscar had never seen it coming until it had been too late.

Oscar wanted to do all that and more, if he only could, but Oscar had never been stupid- except back then, while he was still holding Diego in his trust- and he wasn't going to start being stupid now. He couldn't begin to imagine what motives Diego had for going through all the trouble of keeping Oscar alive, but the important thing was that he did, and it had to be enough for now. If he pulls it through, if he manages to gather his strength…then he'll think about…the next step.

His emotions must have been showing on his face with humiliating obviousness, because Diego's face was growing darker by second, ending up in a superior snarl when Oscar took the offered piece of meat and swallowed it.

Next several minutes were spent in silence, Diego ripping the small pieces of the fawn's flesh and tossing them to Oscar, who accepted them without a word and without looking at Diego's face. But his stomach couldn't take too much of solid food; soon he turned his nose resolutely away from the last offered bite and stared into the wall of rocks before him, doing his best to keep his meal down. Diego wordlessly came to pick the refused piece up, and when he did so, Oscar caught the glimpse of his face and realized that Diego seemed to be equally embarrassed by this humiliating feeding process as Oscar had been.

The younger tiger took the rest of the kill and devoured the majority of the remaining meat. That being done, he dragged the remnants of the animal away from the sight.

The vultures gave the ill cat a few dirty looks and rushed after Diego and his cargo.

Oscar tried to put the head and the tail of this whole affair together, but it only made his head spin. Deciding to think it through later, he carefully shifted himself to his side again, and fell asleep almost instantly, only to be rudely awoken by something wet falling right on his face.

He immediately recognized a patch of water-soaked moss, and wasn't surprised to find gloomy- looking Diego hovering above him.

_Crap_. So it wasn't a hallucination. _Crap_. And the regurgitated, pulpy meat he'd thought he'd imagined being fed to…_crap. Crap. Crap_…humiliation washed over him like flood from which he'd barely made out alive, and for the first time, he actually regretted the outcome.

"Why'r'y' doin'this?" he croaked out, squinting against the light and into the obnoxious face of his enemy.

"Just bloody drink, Oscar. I don't have time for pleasantries right now", Diego snarled.

"Why-"

"_Drink_."

No place for negotiation. It had been that way since Diego had grown up. There had never been any doubt about who was the superior one. And Oscar, being used to be close to the top- or at the _very_ top- of the commanding chain, hated it from the bottom of his soul.

He drank.

Diego cleaned up the mess they've made while they were eating and, without a word, thankfully disappeared from sight.

"Not givin'up hope, eh?" Oscar hissed at the vultures, who had in the meantime resumed their guarding spots on a dead tree.

"Hope is the last thing to die", answered one of them pleasantly.

Oscar closed his eyes for sleep.


	4. Chapter 3

When he woke up, the vultures were still there.

Ignoring them, Oscar tried to get to his paws, but it proved to be too difficult for him just yet. He took his time coughing, and it was every bit as painful and exhausting as it ever had been, but the muck he coughed up was less stained with blood than before. This time, he managed to cover it with dirt himself.

Which inspired him to slowly turn around and assess the mess- or, rather, the lack-there-of- that he'd been laid in. The ground beneath him was relatively clean, except for the whiff of urine. Somebody had been cleaning up the by-products of his body while he was out of it, and doing it to the best of their ability…the realization made Oscar's insides twist with mortifying embarrassment. It would have been bad enough if it had been Lenny or Zeke, or even his late tigress…but even to think that it had been _Diego_…

He turned to coughing again, and when he finally stopped, breathless, shaking with pain, eyes watering, he found Diego observing him clinically, perched on a large boulder nearby. Had the bloody runt been here all this time? Had he been enjoying himself with Oscar's misfortune so thoroughly that he'd been keeping Oscar alive only to prolong his agony? He wouldn't put it past the traitor.

Diego turned away and was gone again, and Oscar wasn't surprised when, within minutes, another patch of wet moss fell in front of his hiding place. This time, however, it was a bit beyond his grasp. He wished very much to tell Diego exactly which body cavity he could stash up his darn moss… had he only been a little less thirsty.

Diego landed on all fours next to the moss patch, sly, elegant and powerful as ever, while Oscar could only stare at him from his prone position, shooting daggers of hate from his feverish eyes.

"You should drink", Diego stated lazily.

"Yer enjoying this a bit too much", Oscar growled, not knowing whom he hated more- himself for his helplessness, or Diego for being Diego in general.

"Not at all. It's not going to hold water forever. You should hurry."

"You know too darn well I can't reach it, ya traitorous whelp, ya pathetic excuse for a predator!" ah, that felt good. At least he was starting to sound a bit more like himself.

"Yes, you can, and you will", Diego answered in a quiet, dangerous voice that used to send shivers down Zeke's spine. "Get up, you picture of a powerful predator, and get to that bloody moss."

"And t' give ya the pleasure of seeing me crawl? I'd rather drop dead!"

"Now that's the spirit", one of the vultures approved.

"_Shut up_!" both tigers growled at him. The bird chuckled.

"Move, Oscar. I'm warning you", Diego leaned down into Oscar's face.

"Hell, no!"

The next thing Oscar knew, he was being gripped by the skin on his neck by strong jaws- gripped like a disobedient cub, in front of the vultures, Mother Nature, and his own disintegrating dignity- and dragged, despite his clawing and spitting and hissing, to the cursed patch of moss that was oozing water on the stony ground. He panted, not knowing whether to concentrate first on not howling in pain, on thinking of a proper insult for Diego, on calming his raspy breath and hammering heart, or on sucking precious water from the moss. The vultures were shrieking with laughter. They promptly stopped laughing when Diego launched himself, roaring, on their tree, lashing out with his claws and very nearly missing the closest bird; the vultures scattered away, while the dry tree failed to sustain Diego's considerable weight and started cracking in two; Diego jumped away just in time before the tree snapped, its dry crown crashing against the ground, while the irate saber scampered up back at Oscar's side; the older tiger caught him limping slightly before he sat back on his haunches, breathing fast and growling at the world in general.

"Impressive", Oscar sneered. "A tree managed to kick your butt, I see?"

"It's my old wound, you half-dead waste of breath!" Diego roared, piercing Oscar with burning eyes, "It never quite…"

And he cut it off, clamping his mouth shut, looking away, and Oscar glanced at the scar on Diego's right shoulder and side. He knew where that wound came from. Serves you right if it still gives youtrouble, you sack of dung, Oscar thought, you deserve that and thousand times worse than that, but said nothing, and suckled on his moss instead.

"You'd better stay on open air for some time", Diego snarled and stood up, his limp no longer showing. "You reek of illness, and so is your hidey-hole. It's only a matter of time and luck before the stench attracts a cave lion, a pack of wolves, or a bear. Good luck with ventilating your butt."

And he leaped away behind the rocks and out of sight again.

Oscar's first instinct was to yell: 'wait!' but stopped himself in time to preserve some modicum of pride. He gulped, looking around…his 'hidey-hole' was only a few steps away, but a few steps he couldn't take, and he was out in the open now, alone.

He tried to sniff around a bit. He still couldn't feel scents properly, but his nose wasn't as useless as it was…yesterday? Last week? Last month? How long had he been rotting here, anyway?

In any case, the only thing he could sniff out was the predominant scent of Diego. He'd obviously marked this area through and through. That was good…probably. It might keep other carnivores away…maybe.

He waited for a certain amount of time before concluding that there had been enough of ventilating.

_Okay. I can do this_.

He tried to claw on the hard ground to pull his weight towards his hideout, and he managed to drag himself a step or two closer to it before having to stop. His chest hurt like hell, his head was spinning and he was shaking like a leaf, but he was two steps closer.

Again he coughed, again he spit out some brownish-yellowish muck, and when little shiny dots of pain cleared away from his eyesight, he went on crawling, hating Diego from the bottom of his festering chest. The runt was nearby, he was certain; nearby and enjoying the show. But now that he'd started doing this, he'd much rather suffocate in pus in his own chest than giving Diego the opportunity to gloat over Oscar's helplessness.

He'd never thought that he'd be so darn proud for crawling any length of space, let alone the length so short, as he was when he'd finally found himself curled up in his hiding place again, exhausted and breathless as if he'd been running for endless hours.

He slept like a proverbial log.

**

Oscar was able to eat the next meal- a large chunk of meat ripped from a bison calf- without Diego's help, at both tigers' unspoken relief.

They didn't exchange a word during the ordeal. The younger tiger was staring purposefully away from Oscar, whose head was now clear enough to think in detail about their bizarre position.

When Diego had betrayed the pack, when it became obvious that he was protecting the mammoth, Oscar didn't have the time to contemplate the reasons behind such behavior. He didn't really contemplate them much any time afterward; he lacked both the time and will. But he had to marvel at how completely and thoroughly had the young tiger fooled both him and Soto, both much older and much more experienced. Oscar had always prided himself at being brainy, but Diego had left him far in the dust.

It burned Oscar's pride, burned worse than being overranked by that runt had ever burned. To think that he'd still trusted him back then, they all did... There had never been a slightest indication, the tiniest sign that would make anybody in the pack, Oscar included, suspect that Diego's loyalty to the pack and to Soto wasn't genuine and absolute. Hell, when Oscar, Lenny and Zeke were almost ready to stand up against Soto's mad rampage for the human baby, it was Diego who had still stood fiercely loyal to the leader. Or so it seemed.

Idiots, all of them.

When exactly did Diego switch sides? And, most importantly, why? What on Earth could the herbivores offer to him that his own kind couldn't have provided? Did he have some ulterior motif which Oscar, with his current lack of detailed knowledge of the situation, wasn't aware of…or did he simply slip into madness, like Soto had, after the half of their pack was killed, and they all failed to notice? Perhaps he didn't have a motif at all; perhaps it was simply a doing of a disturbed mind?

Well, for a lunatic, he had done a good job out of surviving alone…well, at least, hunting alone. Oscar, Zeke and Lenny had been quite particular about spreading the word about Diego the blood traitor to whichever saber pack they could come in touch with. The word soon enough came back to them- the word about a sabertooth tiger residing with a mammoth and a sloth. It couldn't be a coincidence. So he was still with them, making himself a complete abomination and disgrace.

They didn't know Diego's exact territory, provided that he had any, but in fact, they didn't quite care. The survival was difficult enough if they were focused only on…well, survival. Revenge wasn't at the top of their priority list at the moment. They didn't search for Diego actively, but they all swore that if their paths ever cross with his again, they would have him rethink and redefine the meaning of the word 'pain' before they relieve the world of his worthless existence.

But things didn't quite work out that way, at least not yet, and the outcome was becoming more and more debatable with each passing day. Try as he might, Oscar couldn't figure out why Diego was helping him. It didn't fit into anything that he'd done by now. If he was loyal to his…herd, then why helping out another saber, particularly the one that might want him dead for more than one reason? If his loyalties had changed again…was he still with the herbivores? Which interest could Diego possibly have in keeping Oscar alive? Did he have any interest at all? Were any of his actions driven by interest, or was it all a random product of an unhinged mind?

Whatever was the case, one thing was certain: Diego was completely unpredictable and very dangerous.

He was definitely unpredictable in his comings and goings. In the following week or so, he'd show up at any time of day or night, sometimes bringing food and infamous water-soaked moss, sometimes- usually a day after bringing a decent kill- just passing by, but never hanging out for long. But Oscar could say, thanks to the swift recovery of his scent of smell, that Diego had been spending most of his time somewhere nearby. And what of his herbivores? Had he abandoned them…or had they abandoned him? Was that the answer to Diego's inexplicable care about Oscar's welfare? Did he want to have a pack once again? If that was the case, it was a definite proof that the runt was barking mad. He'd never have a pack to belong in his life, no matter how deeply repentant he'd be, or how successfully he'd pretend to be.

And all that time, they didn't exchange one single word.

**

It was the evening when Diego had first found Oscar in seating position, rather than lying down, that they spoke again.

"If you're well enough to sit, you just might be well enough to come over here to eat", said Diego gruffly. "I've had more than enough of cleaning after you to last me a lifetime."

"I didn't ask you to do it", Oscar growled back. His words were followed by a bout of cough. He didn't cough so much anymore, and he didn't cough up blood anymore; the pain was significantly less severe, but it was still giving him hell.

"Just try your best to drag your butt over here, lunger."

Oscar's eyes were watering with pain and humiliation. "Lunger…", he repeated bitterly and coughed up some whitish muck; "lunger, lunger…you know, I remember the time when younger tigers actually held some respect for their elders, enemies or not; when they addressed them with their proper titles…"

"Sure, oldtimer. Just drag your respectable hide over here."

"_Oldtimer_?" Oscar hissed. "Changed my bloody mind. Just keep calling me 'lunger'."

And he walked on shaky legs, coughing and spitting, after Diego, who led him among the rocks and towards the pile of freshly dug ground. It was the place where Diego was obviously digging the abundant meat to be eaten afterward; now he produced the remnants of their last meal- an old elk- from that depositary.

It took Oscar several minutes to find his breath after that short walk before he could breathe slowly enough to eat. They both devoured the meal in haste and silence, after which Diego dragged the skeletal rest away and returned to Oscar, leading him to the nearest water puddle next. That wasn't difficult to find; the impact of flood was still evident on the land and water was abundant everywhere. After they both had their fill, Diego turned away from Oscar and from the hiding place, tossing casually over his shoulder: "If you could come here on your own legs, you can get back the same way, too. See ya 'round."

Oscar licked his lips. This was stupid what he was about to ask, he'd tried once, to no avail…but still…

"Wait a minute."

"Now what?" Diego growled irritably, not quite turning to look at the older tiger.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Exactly what do you mean? Hanging around with the herbivores, or wasting my time on saving your hide, or something else?"

"Well…both, exactly, but now I was thinking more along the lines of you saving my hide."

"And what the heck makes you think that everything has to have a rhyme and reason behind it, Oscar?"

And he once again started walking away.

"That ain't good enough, Diego!" Oscar stood, fueled by fury and energy that a good meal provided.

"Well, that's the best you'll get, so accept it! What do you want me to say? Because I _could_! How about that? Because I could, so I bloody did! Happy?"

"Not nearly", Oscar snarled into Diego's frowned, darkened face. "Is that why you betrayed us back there? Because you _could_?"

He shouldn't have said that, he knew it, not yet, not when he was still too weak to hunt, not when he depended so pathetically much on his enemy's benevolence, or madness, or whatever it was, but he said that, and there was no turning back now. Naturally, expectantly, Diego lashed out and slammed him across the face, effectively cutting off any further remark Oscar might have had in store. By the time Oscar managed to get back to his unsteady legs, Diego was gone.

From that day on, by an unspoken deal and obvious logic, Oscar was heading out to drink by himself, no longer needing Diego's improvised mossy water container. And Diego's visits were becoming less regular as Oscar's condition was slowly, but steadily improving. Sometimes he'd appear two days in a row, sometimes three days would pass without any sign of him- his scent included. Except that most of the times Oscar would visit the depositary, he'd find something dug in the ground, indicating that Diego had been there and went away without bothering to show himself. And again, they didn't talk.

Well, it suited Oscar just fine. He didn't know what to say anyway. Diego's supposed secret agenda yet had to be shown, but the more Oscar thought about it all, the less it made any sense.

But some things didn't need to be spoken to be known to the both of them. For example, Oscar knew now that Diego was definitely still hanging around with the mammoth- two mammoths now, actually, and a sloth, and something that might be some kind of vermin; the scents on Diego's fur were now distinctive enough for Oscar to decipher.

Another thing very obvious to Oscar was that Diego's fuse was becoming shorter by every passing day. Diego didn't need to say a word; his dark glares, irritable growls and obviously sleep-deprived face spoke enough. And he had also lost some weight since the whole thing had started. Those things were easily explicable, and they all came down to one thing: Diego was overworked and overburdened. Sabers were creatures of the pack, and they hunted in packs; they were designed for that. A lone hunter could survive by his wits, if he was strong and clever enough, but a lone hunter providing food for two grown tigers…well, that wasn't likely to last for long. It was simply too demanding for the best of hunters, and Oscar knew that he'd better recover completely soon enough, because his welcome was quickly to be worn out.

Well, the vultures were no longer anywhere in sight. That was one encouraging thing to start with.


	5. Chapter 4

One evening when sky cracked open, sending thunderstorm to beat mercilessly on already water-devastated lands, and Oscar was spending his time watching thunderbolts from his safe, dry den, a very drenched, angry-looking Diego appeared so suddenly and soundlessly in front of Oscar that he made Oscar jump from his prone position, hit his head on the low ceiling of the rocky hideout, and let out a stream of swear words, punctuated with coughs. Diego grinned watching that, though he generally looked like he'd never felt less like grinning about anything. His green eyes glowed in eerie light of lightning bolts.

"What the- ", Oscar begun furiously, only to be cut short: "Shut up and budge over."

"I take it you got caught by the storm", Oscar said observationally, rubbing the bump on his head angrily.

"No, not really. It's mid-evening on night of full moon, and that's the time for my monthly ritual of standing in the icy thunderstorm the whole night long. It's a great mental exercise. I recommend."

"Well, have a good time, then", Oscar retorted, stubbornly refusing to move an inch.

"_Move_, Oscar", snarled Diego, baring his teeth.

Reluctantly, Oscar made some place for Diego to cramp up with him in the small space of his den. The younger tiger was limping again, Oscar noticed, and his right side was drenched with mud, not only with rain, his face darker than the cloudy skies above.

They were uncomfortably close for Oscar's liking now, especially since Diego was soaking wet, icy cold and oozing water all over the now-cramped space. Diego didn't seem to be any happier with the arrangement than Oscar. For about half an hour, they kept quiet, both looking out at the downpour. Then, Diego shifted a bit, and his face frowned in pain for the briefest of moments. Oscar decided to take a chance: "Um, I suppose that the hunt didn't go exactly as planned?"

Diego shot him with a bloodthirsty look.

"Hey, no need to get a burr in your fur. Happens even to the best of us, let alone to the likes of you."

"Seeing as your…prolonged existence…depends pretty much on my good will, I'd shut up about now if I were you, lunger."

The advice was accented by low rumble coming from Diego's stomach. Not only he was angry, soaking wet, cold and in pain…he was also hungry. Not the best of times to rile him up further. But Oscar enjoyed too much seeing him miserable to miss the opportunity to rub it in a little bit deeper: "So, what was it? A bison? A deer? A horse? What happened, you slipped, or were you too slow, or you gave out your position, or got kicked in the-"

"Can you run?" Diego cut him off, piercing him with a glare that didn't bode well.

"Er…" Oops.

He could walk now, that much he knew, but he hadn't tried to run just yet. He still had trouble breathing, the pain from his broken ribs not quite gone yet. But he wasn't sure if it would be a good idea to give Diego a detailed report on his health. And he was pretty much certain that he had just crossed the line, that Diego was about to chase him out of the den and into the white world again to manage it by himself, the best he could.

"I'll take it as yes", Diego grunted, laying his head at his front paws to rest. "At dawn, we head out on the hunt. We'll see how well you handle a herd of bison with calves. My wise elder", he added viciously.

"What, in this weather? Have you completely lost whatever passes for mind between those ears of yours? Whoever hunts in this darn downpour?"

"I sure hope that's exactly what the bison will think."

"You do realize we can't follow any scents on this weather?"

"Neither can them."

"A herd of bison is stronger than one and a half tiger, Diego!"

"Are you officially admitting being only a half of a tiger, lunger?"

"I meant you, herbivore lover, bloody traitor of your kind, you disgrace and abomination- " Oscar hissed and spluttered, starting to see red, but Diego got into his face, very literally, and roared lowly in a voice that allowed no further dispute: "They may be stronger, but we'll be smarter. Now sleep. You'll need your strength and your courage, however lacking they might be, early in the morning."

"Courage", Oscar spat, "you dare talking about courage! And strength! Where were your courage and strength when your pack needed them- how a traitorous waste of flesh and bone dares to speak about courage-"

_"I never wanted Soto dead!_" Diego roared from the depth of his chest, jumping to his paws and nearly bumping his head at the ceiling as Oscar did earlier.

So, they finally came to that. "No, you just made sure that he meets his end by-"

"I said I never wanted him dead, I didn't want _anybody _dead there-"

"Why did you bloody betray us, darn it, why, Diego; you bloody grew up among us, we-"

_"The mammoth saved my life!!!"_

_"What?"_

"I said that the mammoth saved my life", repeated Diego, growling through firmly clenched teeth and shivering from whiskers to tail. "I bloody near fell into a volcano, and he pulled me back- he nearly got himself killed-"

"…oh…"

"Yeah, bloody oh!"

Oscar wanted to say something poisonous and insulting, but didn't, because a fit of cough overcame him, and it took him a fairly long amount of time to calm down enough to speak, eyes watering and chest wheezing: "…yer insane, I knew you were; why the heck would a mammoth save a saber's life…and risk his own skin…to that…"

"That's exactly what I asked him", Diego snarled, "He told me it's what you do in a herd…you look after each other…"

And he turned silent, grinding his teeth, eyes blazing; whether he was furious on Oscar, on himself, or on somebody and something invisible to Oscar's eyes, the older tiger couldn't tell.

"Damn you, Diego, that's what you do in a pack, too, as you bloody well know", Oscar whispered, breathing heavily and raspy.

"I know", Diego whispered back, still staring out in the storm; "the problem was, by the time we reached Half Peak, I was indebted to both the pack and the herd…"

"And you chose the herd!" snarled Oscar, showing all his teeth. "You chose a herd of prey animals you knew for a couple of days above the pack of your own kind that you spent your entire life in!"

"I didn't choose _anybody_! I chose only to keep everybody alive to the best of my power…"

"And you failed!"

"_Yes_!" roared Diego into Oscar's furious face, and for the first time, his voice gave out something other than fury and loathing, something that Oscar didn't hear in Diego's voice since his cub days; his eyes were glittering strangely, and Oscar wasn't one bit surprised when Diego looked away, jaws clenched firmly together. Perhaps it would have induced sympathy in somebody else, somebody who hadn't been hating Diego for so long, but not in Oscar.

"Well, that's what you're best at, right?" he hissed at Diego, wanting to strangle him, to slaughter him, to spill his blood, and hating himself for being too weak and too ill to do so. "You're one huge failure, always had been, from the day you were born…you were too much of a failure to be a member of a saber pack, and I bet my fangs you're too much of a failure to be a part of a herd of herbivores, too…where are your precious friends now? Do they know where you are? Do they ever see you hunting, or eating? Do you have to hide yourself from them so you don't disgust them when you eat? Even your own mother abandoned you when you were only a suckling whelp; obviously she knew what she was doing, what a bloody mistake Soto did when he took you in, we should have left you to freeze in that blizzard-"

A bout of violent cough stopped him, though he'd pretty much said all insulting things he could think of; he expected Diego to go for his throat the moment he mentioned his mother, as Oscar would have done, and as old Diego certainly would have done, which was why, back in old days, nobody in the pack dared to mention her to him…

Not this time. Diego remained seated at the entrance of the den, immobile as if he was carved out of stone, his back to Oscar. They were only inches away and Oscar could clearly see and hear the rapid rise and fall of his chest, see the end of every bristled hair, hear his rapid, strong heartbeat, which rang in Oscar's ears louder than the howling of wind and the showering noise of the downpour.

Oscar waited. And waited. Diego didn't move.

"Is that why you go through all this trouble to keep me alive?" Oscar asked quietly, coldly. "You think that's enough to be, like, redemption or something? That if you help me, you'll somehow make everything all right again?"

Diego let out a bitter sound that was half-way between a snarl and a chuckle. "Don't be ridiculous."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you're flattering yourself a bit too much if you think that your life and Soto's life equal. Soto was a great leader, a great fighter, a great teacher…you, you're just an envious shadow of him which spent a lifetime wanting to be a leader like him and never had the ability, or…Whatever happened to Zeke and Lenny, by the way?"

Diego finally turned to look at Oscar, his eyes narrowed, glowing and vicious. Oscar blinked, cursing Diego for twisting this particular dagger in his gut. It showed, he knew.

"So you didn't manage to keep them safe, did you?" Diego smiled coldly. "They trusted you, you were their leader, they were your responsibility, and you failed them. Didn't you? Is that what happens when you try to be the top cat?"

"Shut up, Diego, or I'll rip your tail out and stick it up-"

"So, no, Oscar; I'm not doing this because I think I'll 'make everything all right'. I know I won't. And if I did, I certainly wouldn't try to 'make it all right' for you. I don't owe you Soto's life. If any of Soto's children ever comes after me, looking for revenge, I'll answer to them. Not to you."

"Then why the-"

"Because it's a bloody right thing to do!" Diego roared, showing all his teeth; Oscar noticed that his claws had left angry marks on the rocky ground. "Because you being a waste of space ain't a reason good enough for me to leave you to rot in this hole! Because you never gave me a reason to let you die, even if I very often wish that I did, and because I felt it's a darn right thing to do!"

"Like betraying your pack felt like the right thing to do at the time?"

"Like helping out the guy who'd saved my life seemed like the right thing to do at the time!"

Silence followed that statement, long and heavy and colder than the sleety rain that kept on pouring. The showering sound filled the minutes that went by.

"Better be ready for the hunt in the morning", Diego finally muttered. "You'll get the herd running towards me, I'll ambush them. We'll set the details when we get there."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then I no longer help your worthless hide, you go hunting, or scavenging, or however you intend on surviving, you leave my territory, and never show your face anywhere nearby", growled Diego.

"Sounds like a bloody deal to me", hissed Oscar darkly, pulling back as far back as the rock behind him would allow him. Unfortunately, it only gave them about two inches of additional space. He laid his head on his paws and prepared himself for a long, sleepless night, keeping his eyes on Diego, who still sat staring into the storm. He sure as crap wasn't going to sleep while this crackpot was in the same den.

Next thing Oscar knew, it was night, the rain was still falling, though less heavy than earlier that evening, and Diego was sleeping, breathing evenly, curled up some nine inches away.

Oscar blinked.

Nine inches. Only nine inches away was the throat he'd swore he'd slit open if he ever gets the chance. Though he never really hoped much that he'd get that chance.

And the chance was here now.

It would be so easy, even in Oscar's weakened condition, to soundlessly lash out and sink his teeth into Diego's exposed throat. A strong, young bastard like Diego wouldn't die instantly; he'd trash around for a few more seconds, maybe minutes- long enough to take Oscar with him, but who cares? It wasn't like Oscar had a promising future waiting for him. Without a mate, without a pack, not exactly in his prime, Oscar wasn't hoping to live much longer, even if he recuperated completely, which was questionable enough in the first place. Now he had a chance to actually go down big style, bringing this hateful, traitorous, worthless prick down with him.

And maybe Oscar would even manage to escape Diego in time, maybe he'd even succeed to rid these lands of this bastard and survive. Maybe he was now strong enough to hunt a bit, maybe he could still pull it through, trace Lenny and Zeke, and bring them happy news about Diego's ultimate demise?

Whatever the outcome, it was worth a shot. And that hated throat was so close, almost offering itself. He could see pulsating under white, soft fur, where a carotid was close under the skin. Slow and steady, as it should be in sleep.

Oscar's heart was, on the contrary, hastily racing up.

_It would be deserved. He betrayed us all. Soto is dead because of him._

Oscar's claws extracted themselves on their own accord. His heart was now high in his throat, or so it seemed to him. What was wrong with him? He'd hunted down countless animals, dug his teeth into countless throats. This was just another hunt, and it was going to be the sweetest kill of all. So what if it was one of his own kind? It was a traitor, and his life was now as worthless as that of any prey animal.

Oscar's heart raced, every muscle in his body strung for a leap. But he yet had to make that leap.

_It would be deserved._

I know.

_So what's stopping you? Chickened out?_

Not really.

_What is it, then?_

Um…

_What is it?_

It's…well…that bloody moss, and...everything.

_What?_

I told you.

_He didn't do it out of goodness of his heart! He did it because he's bloody insane! And he still remains a traitor!_

I know.

_Then stop hesitating! Give me one reason not to do it!_

Maybe…

_What?_

Maybe it's the right thing to do.

_The right thing to do? Maybe this madness of his is contagious, more likely!_

Maybe.

_Oh, no; you're not actually going to let him get away with…_

For now, let's just put it that way...for now. Okay?

_You'll never have a chance like this again, you idiot!_

Oh, shut up.

…Oscar's claws retracted, slowly. His heart was still stampeding in his chest. Slowly, he placed his head back on his front paws.

At that moment, Diego's eyes snapped open, glowing green in the flash of a lightning. And Oscar knew that he'd just been caught staring, and his blood ran freezing cold.

Then, the bloody bastard smiled. He smiled.

And closed his eyes again. His breathing never quickened one bit.

Oscar's, on the contrary, went so raspy that he was certain that it could be heard a mile around. He'd be now deader than their last week dinner had he gone with his…plan.

So, hunt it was tomorrow.

**

_I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna…_

Oscar didn't know what made his head spin more: the exertion from running- as short as it had been-the beating of heavy rain that was still pouring down on them, or the thundering of dozens of hooves on the muddy ground; hard, heavy hooves, which he had to dodge as they lashed out towards him, once or twice nearly cracking his skull open, and only his hunting experience, and not his less-than-superb current speed and agility, saved him from certain and swift death.

His lungs protested against the effort; his breath came in short, painful, wheezing gasps; his heart was certainly going to explode; he couldn't do this, he couldn't last any longer…and the bloody herd was still not stampeding towards Diego and his ambush; they've gone this far, got freezing cold in this gawd-awful storm, stalked the herd for two long, cold, wet, hungry hours, and they were going to stay hungry again, because Oscar wasn't able to…

Not on my shift, darn it, he thought, and, maneuvering among the lashing legs and brandishing horns, he charged deeper into the panicking herd, towards the cows, towards the calves.

It worked. Every bull and cow in the herd bolted, haphazardly regrouping themselves, trying to reinforce the protective circle around their young ones, simultaneously changing the general direction they moved in, trying to make the calves move as far from Oscar as possible.

Well, that's all, folks, Oscar thought as his legs finally gave out; the tiny dots that he saw swimming before him had nothing to do with rain that run into his eyes; he vaguely realized he'd been lifted from the ground- the world looked really funny, this high up; he'd never been stabbed on bull's horns before, he'll have to thank Diego for this experience if he lives long enough - and then he was sent flying through the air; he landed into the muddy ground softer than he'd expected, the mud breaking the fall, but his chest still felt it, and whatever little breath he'd still had was now knocked out of him, leaving him wheezing and gasping for breath, ending up in a violent bout of cough, watching with swimming eyes the herd that thundered past him and right into Diego's waiting jaws.

He saw Diego jumping out from his ambush in one magnificent leap- darn it, the whelp had grown into one fine hunter, Oscar had to give him that; what a pity he was a traitorous scum- he gripped one of the smaller bulls by the hump, and every muscle in his massive forearms and wide chest stood out; when had Oscar last been so young and healthy?- his roar mingled with a terrified yawl the bull let out- Diego was pulling the bull towards the ground, but the bull wasn't going to fall easily; he kicked and trashed, hauling Diego along; this was the first critical moment; if Diego's rear paws lose footage now, everything was in vain-

-but Diego didn't lose balance; the bull did, overpowered; he staggered and fell into mud, pinned by Diego's large, heavy front paws; the bull's head trashed about, trying to stab the hunter with the horns, and here came the second critical moment; Diego had to quickly immobilize the prey, and long enough to deliver a bite to the throat, or the bull was going to set free and-

-well, no such thing happened. With a well-practiced maneuver and considerable speed, Diego had the bull's entire front quarters pinned to the ground; the prey's hind legs kicked around, reminding Oscar of a cockroach whose head had just been stepped on, while its rear parts still wriggled up and down; the bull's hollow bleating was cut short when Diego put the famous saber teeth of his into action, opening his jaws wide enough for the bison's massive throat, and fiercely sinking his teeth into the flesh, severing the carotids and the windpipe in one slice of his serrated canines; he pulled them out as fast as he'd delivered the blow, jumping off the bison, who gave a valiant effort of trying to stand, but failed. With gurgling sound, he sank back again, life draining out of him in pulsing flow of light-red blood. Within seconds, he stopped moving, and his herd was already disappearing behind the stormy curtain of rain.

Oscar shook his head, trying to get the rain away from his eyes. Pride flowed over him, making him all giddy and warm inside like after the first time he'd been a part of a successful hunt, all those years ago. They did it, they did it- and _he _did it, too; he didn't fail; he didn't embarrass himself and his bloodline again; despite the cough and lack of exercise and broken ribs, against all odds, _he did it!_

…And why wasn't he dead by now, by the way? He'd thought that being stabbed on bison horns hurt much more than this…

"Do you have a death wish?" roared Diego, now standing above Oscar; his furious expression was completed with blood that was dripping from his saber teeth, his whole body still trembling with the thrill of the hunt. "I don't remember we said anything about that kind of stunt! You were supposed to chase them towards me _without _having yourself posing as a decorative element on that guy's horns!"

"Well, couldn't let you have all the fun, could I?" snapped Oscar back, still pretty much winded. "And I think he didn't stab me", he added, carefully checking out his chest and belly, finding only one deep scratch, "he just, er, flung me aside, I think."

"Well, don't give up hope; maybe the next time. Now get up, if you can, and let's eat, quickly, before a pack of cave lions invites themselves for breakfast!"

Hunting together, as Oscar experienced for the umpteenth time now, had an effect of somewhat reconciling the quarreling parties. Whether it was about the fact that the world seemed like a much better place with full stomach, or was it about the hunting experience and the thrill of it serving as a bonding force, or both- in any way, the bristled fur was much more easily smoothed after a successful hunt than in any other occasion.

The position of Oscar and Diego couldn't really be labeled as 'reconciled' at the moment, but it was less hostile than it had been since…well, since Soto's death, Oscar mused. If anything, he was now glad that he didn't try to kill Diego last night. First, because he'd certainly have managed only to get himself killed; second, because without Diego, he certainly wouldn't have eaten this well today; and third…well, the third…because of that cursed water-soaked moss, and…everything.

Not that he felt any less humiliated about the whole thing. Or that he despised Diego any less for his betrayal, or for the fact that Oscar was so pathetically dependent on him. But he had to admit to himself that Diego really, really didn't need all the trouble of keeping him alive. Yet he gave his best, apparently not driven by any kind of ulterior motif at all. And Oscar, in spite of himself and his long- lasting hatred of Diego, couldn't help but feeling a nagging, annoying, however small amount of… yuck… gratitude…to Diego for that. It wasn't good enough to make up to his betrayal, as Oscar had pointed out to Diego only the evening before, but now it seemed…somehow…a bit more important than it had then. Maybe because of what Diego had said, that he'd actually tried to keep everybody alive back then, on Half Peak; that he didn't want Soto to die. Had Oscar heard that any time earlier, he wouldn't believe Diego that as far as he could throw him, but now, after all these weeks…

"How long had it been?" he asked suddenly. Diego turned to look at him, a paw he'd been cleaning off blood suspended in mid-air.

"Since what?" tense, careful. Apprehensive.

"Since you found me…"

"Oh. That." Diego relaxed. "'Bout a month and a half."

"That long?" Oscar's ears pricked up in unfeigned surprise. "How long had I been, er…"

"Out of it?"

"Um, yeah…?"

"Ten days, a day more or less."

"Crap." Ten days of being force-fed to regurgitated food like a disobedient cub, having his excrements cleaned up by his sworn enemy, being seen shaking with fever and overheard talking who-knows-what kind of gibberish. Great. He squeezed his eyes shut, not exactly overjoyed with the mental image of himself that came to his mind.

"Sure it was." Diego's face screwed up, too; apparently the memory wasn't exactly the pleasant one for him, either. He shook himself to rid his fur of water, though to little use; it was still raining down on them, which obviously grated on Diego's nerves; he'd never been much of a water-lover. "How did you get all mashed up like that, anyway?"

Oscar was happy for the change of topic. He told his story in short terms, seeing Diego flinch almost imperceptibly while Oscar retailed being caught in the flood. No, never a water-lover, that one.

"And you? How did you make it in the flood?" he asked in the end.

"Um…we…well…long story."

"Your, er, herd…they all survived, right?"

Oscar tried his best to wipe off all malice and sarcasm from his voice. He was genuinely curious about Diego's…exotic lifestyle; he didn't think he'd hear anything like that any time again. And his full stomach and his unspoken pride about finally being able to contribute in a hunt made him very disinclined to bicker.

"Yeah. Not only we all survived, we got a few new installments."

Oscar's eyebrows traveled upwards. "Another mammoth and a rat?"

"Another mammoth and…er…two possums." Diego's words, growled out, went nearly unintelligible, but Oscar understood nonetheless.

_Don't comment, don't comment, don't comment…and don't laugh, darn it…_

Diego fixed Oscar with a caustic, poisonous-green glare, while Oscar gave his utmost best to make his grin pass for a grimace of pain. "Knock it off, oldtimer. I know you wanna laugh, so laugh. See if I care. Yeah, possums", he spat the last word like a sharp shred of a crushed bone.

"Aw, come on, Diego…I mean, you see it yourself, it's bloody ridiculous…"

"What I don't see is how it happens to be any of your darn business!" snarled Diego.

"It's not. My apologies", Oscar said smugly. "You know the best what exact use you have of them…and of it all…"

"I see you have too much wind to pass, Oscar, so why don't you work it out in helping me to drag the rest of the kill somewhere safe? I wouldn't try to take it to the usual place; it's too darn big and it will attract all the carnivores a mile around… I wouldn't fancy us being intercepted by a mountain lion or a bear… so we better hide it somewhere around here, and we'll have enough for us both for at least a couple of more days. And let's move from this cursed rain after that. If it lasts, we're bound for another flood."

That said and done, they headed back to Oscar's den as hurriedly as their full stomachs would allow. Feeling drastically more satisfied with himself than only a day before- and more like his usual smug self along with it- Oscar decided, when they were almost there, to try once again: "You still hadn't told me how you made it through the flood…"

Diego sighed. Obviously the good meal mellowed his temper, too, because instead of giving out an acid remark, he said: "Fine. You won't believe one word, but you asked for it."

**

"So…" the rain yet had to stop by the time Diego was done with his story; if it had, it would have showed that the sun was high in the sky."…so…"

Oscar didn't know what exactly to say to all that. It was an amusing story, for sure, and crazy enough to suit Diego…but still…he could even understand about the mammoth if he strained his brain really hard…but possums. And a sloth. Diego's poor ancestors must be turning in their graves in this very moment…

"Yeah. So. Told ya."

"No, no, it's…um…it's a good…um…a good story. So…um…speaking about your, er, friends…do they know about…about…"

"…about you resting your hide here? No. It would only upset them needlessly. Manny and Ellie are pretty much in seventh heaven, and I have no intention of having their nerves in a knot about the predator which ain't posing a threat…"

"…and you're a bit uncertain about how they would react to you if they knew you were nursing a snake in their little paradise…double agent again, eh?" Oscar added softly, before thinking it over twice.

"…at least, you haven't been posing one until now."

Oscar's face instantly lost his smug expression. Diego's eyes were suddenly inscrutable, distant, and looking through him, rather than at him.

"You're recuperating nicely", Diego continued, in a too-pleasant voice. He was speaking quietly, but each word was very clearly audible in the small space of the den. "Soon you'll be able to hunt alone, and then we'll part our ways. But before that moment comes, there are a few things you should be aware of."

He paused, probably for the dramatic effect, and it was a complete success, because he had Oscar's full and undivided attention. His attitude had so drastically changed from a more-or-less-content storyteller into a coldly observant potential assaulter that the fur on Oscar's nape went pricked, and his eyes fixedly followed Diego's slow movements.

"First of all, as soon as you're able, you're gonna leave my territory, as fast as you can, and you'll never show your face anywhere around, unless you have a darn good reason for that, and provided that I allow you to."

"If you think that I wanted to end up on your territory-"

"Second, you have noticed that, east of these rocky grounds we're now at, there's a valley. A big one. These rocks are on the very boundaries of it. Now, this is pretty much contained in what I've just told you, but…_nothing _is to be killed in that valley, as long as it stands marked as my territory. Hunt elsewhere. Do you understand?"

"You made yourself very clear", hissed Oscar.

"And there's the third thing", Diego continued in the same low, quiet, ominous voice, staring right into Oscar's eyes; "you will never, as long as you live, harm any member of my herd. Any of them. Neither will any member of your pack, if you get to have one, harm them while under your command, or if you have any way of preventing it. Understood, Oscar?"

Silence ensued, and in that silence, Oscar could hear the quickened pace of his own heart, knowing that the other cat could hear it, too. Diego's heart, by comparison, was beating in his usual even rhythm, though the beats seemed stronger, louder than normal.

"I can't promise you that, Diego", breathed Oscar at last. "They may be your friends, or you may think of them as such, but to me, they're only prey, same as that bull we killed today. If me or my packmates go hungry, I won't risk starvation for me or for them because of…of a promise given to…"

"Correction", Diego slowly rose to his paws. Oscar tried to slink back as inconspicuously as possible. "_I _killed that bull today. And he was a little bit heavier, stronger and in better shape than you are. I wasn't politely asking for your word, Oscar. Those animals are now my family. Be it as ridiculous as it is, but they're all I have now, and you have no idea what I'm capable of doing to protect them."

Diego was speaking so quietly now that Oscar had to strain his ears well to hear him, but every word was unmistakably spoken in dead seriousness and emphasized with deep growling sound from Diego's throat, as well as with cold glowing in his narrowed, green eyes. Oscar's breathing was now very loud, louder than the constant sound of showering rain outside.

"Don't make me do that, Diego", he growled, though he was starting to feel like crying now, weeping like hadn't done since he was a cub. He had never begged anybody for anything, darn it; he wasn't going to start now…

"Tell me, Oscar, you who are older and wiser than me, would you consider yourself owing me a life debt now?"

The older and supposedly wiser one gaped at this. That was something he'd asked himself during the past weeks for more times than he could count. At first, he was assuring himself that, since Diego had been guilty for Soto's death and betrayal to the pack, this was barely a beginning of penance on Diego's side; that it was Diego who had been indebted to Oscar, and still was, disregardful of the recent…events. As they both agreed on the matter last night, Diego couldn't 'make it all right' so easily.

But Diego did make a point last night, telling him that it wasn't up to Oscar to search vengeance for Soto. Oscar had been reasonably respectful to Soto, and fond of him to a certain extent, but they had never been particularly close. In fact, Oscar had the impression that Soto meant much more to Diego than to himself, and all things considered-remembering Diego's voice and face last night, when he howled how he didn't want Soto to die- Oscar was now ready to assume that Soto's death actually came as a heavier blow for Diego than for any of the others.

Well, it would make sense. The runt never knew his own parents, and Soto was definitely the closest thing to a father figure that the whelp had ever had. Which meant that he'd already been punished all right, that no avenger could ever inflict that much pain to Diego as the whelp had already inflicted to himself. And living with the knowledge that he had failed to protect all his loved ones…well, Oscar knew a thing or two about that. And, of course, there was the missing piece of the puzzle that Oscar found only last night; the piece about the mammoth having saved Diego's life. That explained a world of it.

In all, vengeance for Soto's death wasn't Oscar's place to meddle. Soto had children, as Diego had pointed out; grown sons and daughters that could trace Diego down, if they wanted to.

As for the betrayal of the pack…it all came down to Diego trying to save them all, and failing. And now Diego had saved Oscar from a certain and slow death; that being put on the scale against the betrayal…

"Yeah, I owe you a bloody life debt, curse on you", Oscar said, exhaling slowly and looking right into Diego's eyes.

"Very well. If that's so, then I put it upon your honor to remember that debt if there ever comes a time when a life of one of my friends is at your mercy. Spare that life, or help it being saved, and I will consider you relived of your debt to me."

Oscar stared at Diego to be sure that the younger cat wasn't joking.

"Let me see if I got it right", he whispered. "You are trading the life debt I owe to you for the life of one of them herbivores?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"And if there ever comes a time I happen to be in position to save _your _miserable skin, you won't consider me obliged to do it, if I swear to spare your leaf-loving buddies?"

"I think I just said something along those lines."

Oscar stared at Diego. For some time.

"You're more than a little touched in your head, kid, you know that?"

"Spare me the preaching part, oldtimer."

"Didn't I tell you to keep calling me 'lunger'?"

"Well, you're getting better every day, but not any younger. So this might be more appropriate now."

"Fine!" Oscar snarled. "As you wish. But you're the craziest son of a cat I've ever seen in my days, and probably the craziest I'll ever see! So, which one?"

Diego's ear turned to Oscar. "Which one what?"

"On which of your friends you want to place your life debt?" Oscar rolled his eyes. "You can't expect me to be able to save the whole darn herd if they all get into trouble! Which one would you pick to live if the others were to die?"

"Whichever of them is in the immediate danger! It's not really likely that the whole gang will…" he trailed off, frowning. "…but then again, considering the past experience…"

Oscar waited while Diego muttered something to himself, frowning. He caught the words 'dung-headed' and 'too darn proud', though he couldn't quite make out anything else.

At last, Diego looked back at Oscar again.

"The mammoths are going to have a baby", he said quietly. "Well, Ellie just recently got pregnant, so it's gonna wait a bit, but if everything goes all right, in about a year and a half, there'll be one more member in the herd."

"Delicious. I mean, touching. And…"

"…and if it comes to that…if the whole herd is in danger, and you can help only one of them, I want that baby to be the one you'll help."

"And then I'm rid of all bounds to you?"

"Free as a bird."

Oscar licked his lips. He was bone-tired, in pain, confused, and more than a little sad at the moment. Sad for their packmates, killed by humans, his life-long mate first of all; sad for his children, which went their ways and were now roaming who-knows-where, and he didn't know how many of them were dead by now, and how many were alive and doing well; sad for Soto, who met such a stupid, dishonorable death for such a great fighter; sad for Lenny and Zeke, alone and leaderless somewhere out there, if they survived the flood in the first place; sad for Diego, alone among his herbivores who, Oscar was certain, will never know what was their carnivorous friend about to give up for them and what he'd already given up; sad for himself, aging and alone, deprived of everything he knew and loved in such short time, and stripped of most of his dignity before this rival of his.

"All right", he sighed. "Blood oath?"

"Blood oath."

Oscar traced the back of his left paw with one sharp claw. Crimson drops ran down and dripped on the stony ground, among the cracks and into the dirt, which slowly imbibed it.

"Okay, here we go." He cleared his throat, preparing to recite the oath which sabers used in the most serious of times. "I swear on my honor, whatever I have left of it, and my life, however little of it might be left, that, if need arises and I'm still alive, I will protect your herd to the best of my abilities, never harming any of them…"

"Add something about the baby in particular."

"…I'm getting down to that, darn it; this is _my _oath! And I swear that, if all their lives are in peril, and I'm unable to help them all, I'll do whatever is in my power to help first and foremost the baby mammoth. On this I swear with my blood, for the earth to hear and remember. There. Happy?"

Diego sniggered, while Oscar was fuming and glaring dirtily at him. "Very good. Very poetical. Never thought I'd hear words so pretty coming from you. Didn't know you had it in you."

"Let's rather have some shuteye", Oscar groaned. "Maybe when I wake up, I'll find out this was all just a nightmare…"

"I tried that approach. Ain't gonna work."


	6. Chapter 5

When Oscar woke up, it was mid-afternoon, and Diego was nowhere to be seen. He hadn't shown himself for over a week, but when Oscar visited the hidden carcass to eat, he found it being a few pounds of meat lighter than when they'd hidden it, and there was Diego's fresh scent and teethmarks on it.

In the meantime, Oscar started to move around and about quite a lot- running, climbing trees and rock, exploring the possibilities for a next hunt; whatever, only to keep him moving and rebuilding the considerable amount of muscle he'd lost. Before his illness, he'd imagined that ideal life would consist of lying down, giving out orders and having a pack of devoted hunters to provide him food. Now that he'd escaped death so narrowly, he only wanted to feel his body. Every muscle strain was a pleasure, reminding him that he could still feel; every hair in his fur wanted to be windswept, no longer minding the cold; running was a pleasure even if it did leave him breathless and wheezing, because it meant that he was still breathing; pain was welcome, because it made him feel alive.

But he still wouldn't dare hunting alone. Despite the growing hunger, he knew he couldn't do it; not only was he still too weak, but he'd never in his life hunted alone; hunt had always been a matter of practiced team work. He wondered how long it took Diego to adapt…how many failed hunts, how many hungry nights he'd endured since their pack perished; and how much self-restraint it took him to spend nights and days among prey animals and withstand the temptation of the easy kill; how fond exactly he had to be of them to not want to make them his next meal in times when prey was scarce?

He mused about that on one cloudy dawn about a week after their first hunt, fairly hungry and irritable, returning to his den from a short scouting trip, and found Diego waiting for him there, as bad-tempered and evil-looking as Oscar had ever seen him, walking in circles in front of the den, growling under his breath and apparently in even worse mood than Oscar himself.

"Where've you been, you worthless waste of fur? D'you think I don't have anything better to do except to wait for your sorry hide to honor me with its presence? Let's go!"

"Go where?" Oscar snarled back, deciding to skip the part where he wasn't obliged to wait for Diego to appear and order him around. It seemed wiser to skip that.

"Admiring the beauty of nature", Diego rolled his eyes. "Hunting, Oscar! There's a herd of deer in passing, northwest of here, and I'm not gonna skip the opportunity of catching a week-worth of meat because you're dragging me down! Let's go, now!"

The mere mention of hunt made Oscar's heart race and his mouth water. He didn't need to be told twice.

And that was one of their several successful hunts they carried out in the next few weeks. What was a difficult, demanding, taxing business for one lone hunter was much more easily ventured by two tigers that worked in unison. They had a well-defined strategy that worked for the most of times: Oscar was the one to cause diversion and panic among prey animals, sending them right into Diego's gripping claws and serrated teeth. It was actually downright disturbing, the ease in which, after all that time and with all the bad blood between them, they slipped into their roles and how smoothly their cooperation worked. Oscar didn't want to cooperate smoothly with Diego. And he didn't want to have Diego once again in charge and in lead.

But wishes were one thing, and reality was something very much different. Currently, his reality was, among other things, constituted of the fact that he hadn't yet brought any prey down himself. Diego had been in charge, and Diego hadn't ordered him to, and what was worse…he hesitated. Bringing large prey down demanded enormous strength, and Oscar, still unsure of his strength, not wanting to jeopardize the success of their hunts- and much more important, reluctant to gamble away the remnants of his pride and dignity before the whelp if he fails- hesitated.

But he couldn't hesitate forever, he knew. Diego's patience was bound to wear out soon. No saber was inclined to tolerate the presence of another saber on his territory, unless the said other was a member of his pack; soon, Diego would have him packing, one way or another, and Oscar would prefer to have it his own way, if possible.

Days passed, Diego's visits were now limited only to once in seven to ten days when they needed to hunt, barely speaking at all except when it was strictly necessary, and with every day that passed, Oscar knew he was one day closer to the moment he'd have to hit the road.

One cold morning, after a successful hunt, when they- as was the cats' ancient custom- laid down to sleep after having their fill of food and water, Oscar found himself stirred from his slumber by the sound of Diego clearing his throat repeatedly.

"Heck, kiddo, drink more water, or somethin'…I'm tryin' to sleep here", he drawled drowsily.

But after a few minutes…

"Um, Oscar?"

"Whaat? What now?"

"I'm sorry. About…you know. Everything."

What the…?

Oscar shook his head to clear his eyes of sleep, dumbfolded, and stared at Diego, who suddenly looked significantly subdued, ears flattened to his head and his eyes not quite meeting Oscar's. How could any person on the Earth go through such drastic changes in attitude in such short span of time? Minutes ago, he looked calm, strong and indestructible. Now he reminded Oscar on a clumsy cub that had just did something messy and was mortified for it. Actually…

…actually, he reminded Oscar on one of his own kids. One that didn't live to see adult age, because he was so fragile and clumsy, and simply too much of a runt of the litter. Strong, capable, witty Diego had never before reminded Oscar on him until this point. Not even when he was a cub.

He didn't like this train of thought of his at all.

"Didn't you say it yourself, not so long ago, that it's Soto's children to whom you should be saying that?"

"I'm sorry", Diego continued quietly, softly, "for being the reason that the rest of our pack scattered like this."

"Well…" this did make sense. But Oscar too much drained of energy to hate now. And he liked this repentant Diego even less than the bossy, competent one. It was downright…weird. He just wanted to sleep, and to dream, if possible. Dream of the old days. "…you just finished what humans had started. It was bound to happen."

"Yeah." Diego was still looking away. "I'm sorry anyway."

"Oh, give me a break. Would you have done anything different if you had a chance?"

This caused Diego to look at the other tiger with startled, large eyes. Obviously this thought had never occurred to him. He took his time before answering: "Some things I'd do different. But I'd protect Mann…the mammoth…and the kid… all of them…just the same."

"Well, there you have it. I kinda thought so. You're hopeless. Now go to sleep. I'm bloody beat."


	7. Chapter 6

"Quiet, you idiot!" Diego hissed under his breath; a twig had just snapped under Oscar's paw, and Manny's ear gave a definite twitch.

They were hidden under the canopy of leaves, as well as under the cover of night; the herd was in deep sleep, Manny and Ellie were huddled up close, Sid snoring on a pile of leaves nearby, Crash and Eddie hanging from a branch under which the mammoths slept.

"Okay", Oscar mouthed in Diego's ear. "I got it."

"You sure you would recognize them if you meet them again?"

Oscar nodded, sighing inwardly. All that mammoth meat…but he gave his bloody word. The world wasn't fair, really.

Without a sound, the cats slinked away from the camp.

"I can find my own way out of the valley, kid", Oscar grunted when it became obvious that he was going to be escorted back to the den under Diego's watchful eye.

"Oh, just making sure…" snarled Diego.

"You don't trust me, do you?"

"Never have, never will."

"But you had me make a blood oath nonetheless!"

"Doesn't hurt to make some extra precaution measures."

"You can stick your measures right up-"

"Relax, Oscar. I wouldn't let my ego get so swollen if I hadn't killed anything for the…how much? Three months?"

Oscar gave Diego a look of deepest loathing. "You know bloody well it was you who-"

"You'll get your chance soon enough", Diego cut in impatiently. "Let's get away from the valley before you're noticed."

They prowled in silence for about twenty minutes, before Oscar spoke of something that had been irking him for some time now.

"Which reminds me, you know…I never asked you how come you found me back then? Just happened to pass me by and noticed me?"

Diego's eyes were glowing on Oscar's left. "Oh, no. Nothing so…incidental. You were seen."

"By whom?"

"A stag and his doe, residents of this valley. They thought you were me. When they realized it was another saber they saw, they rushed to Manny to report that."

"To Manny?" Oscar frowned, and his yellowish-green eyes widened. "Didn't you say that your herd didn't know-"

"And they don't. I said that the deer rushed to Manny; I never said they got there. They ran into me first."

"Oh", Oscar grinned knowledgeably, conspiratorially. "I see. And I thought you didn't hunt in the valley. Bad tiger, you are…"

But Diego shook his head. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I didn't kill them."

"Knew I shouldn't have hoped…" Oscar groaned.

"I just threatened them into silence, effectively, I think. I told them I'd take care of your…issue, and that Manny isn't to be disturbed in this happy time of his life."

"And they just…agreed to that? Just like that?" Oscar's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Um, well…no, not really. Not just like that. But I still can be pretty much convincing when I want."

"That I know", Oscar hissed, and not without malice. He still remembered vividly the days when Diego's silver tongue and Soto's iron will would goad the pack into…everything. Into hell and high water. And into revenge rampages.

"In short, they were easily convinced that they better be quiet, or be sorry", Diego continued pleasantly, ignoring Oscar's less-than-friendly attitude. "The stag did try to point out that I've given my word not to hunt in the valley. To which I responded that I knew his journeys out of the valley. That seemed to do the trick."

"Don't you think that they might not stick to their…er…wholehearted promise?" Oscar smiled smugly. "If your buddies get to know about me, and about your threats to those two…they'd still be your buddies after that?"

"Yer concern is really touching", Diego snarled, his easy-going attitude changing into deadly one within a second. "Better save your breath, 'cos we're going hunting in dawn. I'm starving."

For once, Oscar couldn't agree with Diego more. His heartbeat picked up speed.

Two hours later, they were hidden in the high grass, while a herd of five elk cows and one old, formidable looking male elk were slowly making their way south.

"This won't be easy", Oscar whispered in Diego's ear. "They're compact…all healthy... I don't see any of them falling behind…"

"One will have to make them scatter", answered Diego, licking his lips. "And the other will ambush one of the cows. I wouldn't go for the male; he doesn't look like the likeliest of prey."

"Right. How do we'll get them to run where we want them to?"

"If you attack from the back, they'll only run straight forward", Diego whispered, baring his teeth slightly. "But if you attack the flank, and not straight flank, but front, we might get them to reel back and to the side. That's where I must be, to ambush one. We have to make it on the exact right place, at the exact time. No second chances here."

"Why do I have to be the one to cause diversion? Why do you get to do the ambush again?" Oscar hissed quietly. Diego cast him a dirty, incredulous look that irked Oscar beyond comprehension.

"You ain't gonna give up your position with a cough?"

"I'm not coughing anymore", Oscar snarled under his breath.

"Are you strong enough already to bring down an elk this big?"

"I am strong", Oscar growled warningly.

"Strong _enough_?"

Well, that pretty much settled it. "I've been leading hunting parties before you were a mere idea in your father's left nut, kid, and it hasn't been all that long before you were a cub with eight teeth altogether, eating meat that me and my hunters have caught. Bloody try me", Oscar bared his teeth. So that arrogant, good-for-nothing, traitorous, crackpot whelp doubted Oscar's abilities? Fine. He had reasons, that was sure. But things had changed; Oscar had gotten healthy again, and he was rather going to end up killed, having his head smashed with elk's hoof, than having to listen Diego's snide remarks about Oscar's age, health, stamina and strength. He was properly and thoroughly fed up with Diego and his attitude, his water-soaked moss, his grotesque choice of friends, his misplaced loyalty; with lying down while that blood traitor was bringing him scraps and enjoying Oscar's misery, with pain, with cough, with everything. He was tired, darn it; tired and furious and humiliated.

"Very well", Diego snarled back, his green eyes hard and cold. "Be my guest. I wish you nice two hours of stalking over there. Just hope the wind doesn't rise."

It didn't take them two hours, but it did take them one good hour of prowling in the cover of the high grass, Oscar trying to get to the herd's left side from behind their backs, Diego sticking up to their right and waiting for Oscar to assume the position. The lack of wind worked in their favor; the elks still hadn't picked up their scent, and Oscar only hoped that, when he's well positioned and ready, he'd be able to make Diego known of his position without alerting the prey.

Soon enough, he was indeed well positioned, but ready was another matter altogether. The aching in his joints that came with long prowling was considerably subdued by the rush of blood in his ears; his heart was beating - pounding like the first time he was allowed to join the hunt - making his eyes throb; the pit of his stomach was now a home to the most sickening, fluttering, gut-wretching feeling that made him lightheaded and, in short, anything but ready.

He watched the herd, trying to make out some weakness on any of the females, sickness, old age, something that would make him feel a little more self-assured, but no such luck. The old elk had found himself some remarkable mates, which was indicative enough that he, too, was still in full strength and powerful. Oscar gulped; he didn't have much time; he had to give Diego a sign to start, or they'd lose this hunt…why, why the heck was he butting in where he wasn't asked to; he still wasn't strong enough to subdue an elk like this; losing the hunt will soon be the least of his worries- he was going to lose whatever amount of self-esteem he still possessed, and Diego was bound to kick his useless butt out of his territory. Which will be the end of him. Unable to hunt alone, with no pack to support him, he was going to perish within weeks. He'd just dug himself a nice, shallow grave in these hostile grounds…

Well, too late for regret. .. Keeping his heartbeat under control as much as he could – that heart of his will be the death of him; the prey will surely hear it, that ominous thundering; he was going to lose the hunt because of his cowardice- Oscar waited until no elk was likely to spot him, and rose his head from his grassy cover. He couldn't see Diego, but Diego obviously saw him, because he leaped from his hiding place and, with a bloodcurdling roar, charged towards the herd.

The elks reared back, momentarily frozen, but just for a second; the females broke into a hasty retreat, while the old male, to Oscar's surprise, didn't back away, but faced Diego with his magnificent antlers, trying to prevent him from getting to the cows. And the cows, in their haphazard escape, crying '_watch out, watch out_!' paid more attention to their male, then to their own escape – currently, the male elk and Diego were playing a dance of life and death, with Diego trying to jump to the male's side, fangs bared, hackles raised, every muscle straining visibly under the sleek orange fur, and the elk jumping around to intercept the tiger with his six-foot-spanned, potentially deadly antlers, head bowed, trashing from side to side.

Well, this was it, as close as he was ever going to get it. Trying to think less and act more, Oscar sprang from his ambush towards the nearest cow; she saw him a split second too late; his claws were already on her shoulder, but she kicked and trashed him off; the other cows bleated and scattered around in panic; Oscar once again charged after the marked cow, which hadn't broke into run quickly enough to escape Oscar and his long, powerful leap and gripping claws; he clawed on the cow's back and shoulder, feeling her strong flanks strain, hard and stiff as stone- she tried to shake him off again, bleating '_no, no, no, no!_' and was making one good job out of it; Oscar pulled with all his might, but the cow was strong and she wouldn't be brought down so easily; his fingers hurt, she was going to have the claws ripped out of him, now that would be a laugh; she fought, dragging the tiger after her, and his back ached; his spine was going to snap like a dry twig with strain; she fought, but so did the tiger- and with one last strain, which he felt in his every bone- his shoulders were going to pop out of their joints, he was certain- he jumped on the cow's back, his entire weight now on her, and that proved to be a little more then she could take; she collapsed, face-first, into the mud, and he frantically gripped on her neck to pin her down- to immobilize her, so he could deliver a precise and fatal bite to the throat; he couldn't do that while she was kicking around like this, he might easily have his tooth snapped, and then he'd be as good as dead- his rear legs were restraining her hindquarters, while his front paws were holding her neck down- where the heck was Diego now that he really needed him-

_Now_.

With precision born both out of instinct and life-long practice, Oscar drove his eight-inch-long fangs into the victim's throat, cutting off her loud protests in one effective slice. Just as quickly, he released his grip and jumped off her back, and waited, panting and shaking, while the cow tried to get up, gurgling and bleeding all over the place, but her suffering was over within seconds. She fell, motionless.

"Ha!"Oscar roared, high-strung on adrenalin and taste of blood; the pounding of his heart now held a totally different quality to it, and he let out another long, loud and proud roar for the whole territory to hear: he did it!

"In your face!" he growled, grinning from ear to ear, "in your face, whelp! In your bloody _face_! What do you-"

He turned around, expecting to find Diego already at his side and eager to eat, but he only faced cold air instead. The rest of the herd was gone, the old male included- obviously, the sight of their friend falling was demoralizing enough to have them all abandoning any pretense of fight and running away. Herbivores…revenge was never their style, no matter how powerful and deadly they might be…but where was Diego?

Oscar sniffed the air and the ground, having no difficulties finding Diego's fresh scent and reading the tale of the tracks that led into the tall grass in which Diego had been hiding earlier. Here the elk was keeping Diego on a decent length, and they circled around one another…here Diego seemed to have managed to jump the elk, and was dragged into the tall grass as the elk was trashing around and kicking to set free…and here…

Oscar stood frozen for a moment, his ears pricking up.

There, barely visible in the grass, laid Diego, unmoving, eyes closed. Next to him, a large square of grass was flattened down where elk had been brought down, but there was no sight of him now.

Oscar was at Diego's side in one big leap. _Breathing, check, heart still beating, check, no blood visible, check- what's wrong with the whelp?_

"Ey, you", Oscar tried, gruffly, "get up!"

No reply.

"Diego! Get your good-for-nothing, lazy butt up! We have some eating to do, before a bear shows up and takes our kill!"

Still nothing. Oscar shook Diego quite roughly, which made the unresponsive tiger groan, but not to open his eyes.

"Aw, come on, kid, don't do this to me…Diego! Can you hear me? Come on, darn it, whelp, wake up!"

Once again, the quickening of Oscar's heartbeat had a very anxious quality to it; that itself was irritating enough to begin with, but he didn't have time to categorize his very conflicting feelings that provoked such unwelcome and involuntary reaction; he didn't have the time, much less desire, to remind himself that Diego, the traitor that he was, would merely had gotten what he'd deserved if he faced his end here and now… or that this was _exactly _how Oscar's late son looked when he was dying, in this _exact _position, on his side, eyes closed or half-opened at best, groaning quietly, until he simply wasted away, to his both parents' unspoken agony; he didn't want anything, anybody, least of all Diego, of all animals in the world, to remind him on any of his children, especially on his dead son. He couldn't afford it right now, and he didn't want to.

"Diego!" he roared right into his former commander's ear, "get up! Get up, you worthless, miserable, pathetic herbivore lover, you excuse for a tiger, you waste of breath and fur, you idiot, you pile of dung, traitorous bastard whom not even a mother could love, you useless, spineless, brainless cowardly runt, get the heck _up_!!!"

The plea, though genuine and rather fervent, remained unanswered; Diego's eyelids did give a promising flutter, though, and a soft, painful moan escaped him.

"I'm not gonna ask you twice, kiddo; that kill needs to be eaten now, before we lose it to cave lions! I'm gonna eat now, and I don't give a darn if you stay hungry or not! Lay your butt here the whole darn week as long as I'm concerned! See if I leave you a scrap!"

Diego's groan was now somewhat louder and had a definite protesting tone to it, though Oscar doubted it was addressed to him; more likely to the pain that made Diego screw his face up, cracking his eyes open, unfocused, and then hastily shutting them close again.

"Come on, kid!" Oscar shook him again, hating, absolutely hating, the almost-pleading tone that crept into his voice; where the heck did that come from, and why…aside from the fact that he didn't want, couldn't stand to see and hear the moans and pains of a slowly-dying, young saber ever again, even if the aforementioned saber was one bloody Diego the traitor, and _not _his son, _not _his son, _not _his son, he repeated like a mantra in his head… "Ain't you hungry? You gonna let me take all the best parts? Get up, wake up, darn it, we don't have the whole bloody-"

"Shutuposcaaarrr…" growled Diego very, very quietly, eyes still firmly closed.

"There!" snarled Oscar, his ears flattening to the sides of his head, which he quickly held up high, "So you decided to contribute in sharing the kill? Well, I suggest that you get on your bloody feet and hurry up, 'cos I'm not waiting for you! And what the heck happened anyway? You brought the elk down; I take it that he was too much for you to handle?"

Diego's eyes opened again very, very slowly. He blinked, as if the light was hurting him, tried to get up, groaned and laid his head on his front paws again. Now Oscar saw the likely cause of Diego's condition: there was a stone on the exact spot where his head had been until then, a prominent one- how come he hadn't noticed it earlier?- and a decent lump was already visible on Diego's left temple.

"That's it?" Oscar sneered depreciatively; he enjoyed being able to sneer again, though his joints felt very unstable, as if they have suddenly turned to mush, and his heart seemed to have suddenly grow thrice its usual size. "That defeated you? A bloody stone? You got a bump on your head? That's what all the fuss is about?"

"What bloody fuss? Who's fussing?" Diego finally spoke, irritated and blinking; as soon as he turned his head to face Oscar, his nose drained of all color- a definite sign of lightheadedness, or nausea, or both, but the spite in his voice was very much unaffected by any of it.

"What happened?" Oscar snarled, with equal malice.

"Why aren't you atth..at the kill? You did make a bloody…kill, right?" Diego's words came slurred and slower than usual, and Oscar wasn't happy to hear it. This wasn't going to be over soon.

"I did. What happened to you? The elk threw you aside and you hit your head?"

"Dunno", answered Diego after a short pause. "Can't remember…"

Oh joy. "Well, let's better eat; your head might clear up some after that."

"I saw you bringin' the…the female downaaannd…I had him down so I let'im go and can't remember what after…"

"What?" Oscar's ears pricked up, not quite believing what they had just heard. "You what? You _let him go_?"

"Um-humm." Diego was making valuable attempts of keeping his eyes open, but it only caused his nose to lose color, so he kept blinking owlishly. Oscar now wanted very much to knock him over the other side of his head as well, giving him a matching lump and another concussion, but he was so outraged that he could only gape for a few seconds before moaning in despair: "You had that…that…_month worth of meat supply_ pinned down and you let him _go_? Why? Why, darn it, you…you…pathetic…lousy…miserable…worthless…"

He was at loss for words; he could only sputter incoherently in rage.

"We had one from their herd…we didn't need more", explained Diego quietly, his pupils now very dilated, and his belly giving out some uncomfortable-sounding noise of a stomach churning with nausea. He swallowed, breathing heavily; "it wasn't nese…necer…ne-ce-ssary", he finished, barely twisting his tongue around the simple word. Oscar would have maybe even felt sorry for him -Milo was stuttering, too, at the point when he was too weak to speak properly - if he hadn't been so furious.

"Not necessary, kid? Not _necessary_? What the heck do you know about necessary, you crazy son of a cat? We could have dug him in cold ground, in ice; that meat would have spared us a month of hunting! And you let him go, you let him go?!? Not necessary? Are you completely out of your mind? I sure hope that you got yourself a brain damage, 'cos that would be a huge bloody improvement for you-"

His rant was interrupted by a retching sound from Diego's throat; the younger tiger did try to turn away from Oscar, he did, but his unsteady legs simply wouldn't cooperate; however, with his stomach being completely empty, it remained on retching only. Oscar watched him in disgust.

"Sorry", said Diego miserably, and not only he sounded sincere; he sounded and looked crestfallen and pathetic like a sick cub-

Well, he really should stop thinking like this; it would get him nowhere. He snarled. "I'm gonna eat. You coming?"

Diego attempted a cynical smile, but it only came out as a grimace of pain. "Not a chance."

Oscar shrugged and turned to his prey, while Diego laid back in the grass, sighing audibly with relief. And all through his meal, Oscar's throat felt thick with anger; he could barely swallow. _The whelp let the prey go…he had it down and he actually let it go…serves him right; look how that same prey returned the favor, nearly having his head smashed open…serves him right, traitorous freak, mistake of nature; first associating with herbivores, now letting them go when he should have made a kill, and what a great kill that would have been…idiot kid…and Soto had named him the second-in-command…insane, both of them…_

He'd had his full, and dragged the still-plentiful remnants of meat away from the clearance, hiding them the best he could. If he had Diego to help him, they could have taken it further away in a colder and safer place, but no…the already addlebrained bastard had his brain even more shaken up, and all work fell on Oscar's still-recuperating shoulders.

_Well, that's not exactly fair, and you know it. He'd had his time pulling some weight for both of you, and he didn't have to do that._

Big deal. He did it because he's bloody insane; he'd just proven it…he'd helped me from the same reason he'd let the elk go; he's touched in his head, that's all there is to it…

_Still._

Well, one good thing is that I now know I'm pretty bloody strong again. I vote that I hit the road now, before the lunatic had me killed one way or another.

_And what of him?_

What with him?

_Look at him._

Reluctantly, Oscar glanced in Diego's direction. He laid very still, breathing fast and shallow, occasionally grunting with pain as he apparently couldn't find a spot soft enough in the grass for his aching head to lay on. His eyes were tightly squeezed shut, his face contorted in something between desperate concentration and pain, and Oscar could say he was trying hard to keep his upset stomach from retching.

Well, it's not my bloody fault he had his head busted! He asked for it, if you ask me! I don't owe him a life debt; he took care of that...I owe it to one of his darn herbivores, but not to him, not anymore.

_Arrgh, come on! You're just pissed because, now that he's like this, he reminds you of Milo, and you-_

Shut up. Now. And I'm pissed because of a decent number of things, just for the record.

He sat, looking at Diego, for some time. He really didn't need this. He had a safe hideout and enough strength to pull his own weight. It would be so easy to just leave; just get up, without a word, walk and…keep on walking. And he had to find Zeke and Lenny, if they were still alive; those two had never managed well on their own, and it had been good three months now…

He got to his feet. Yes. He had responsibilities and things to do, and Diego had deserved this…

He made a step. And another one. And a few more.

Finally, he was at Diego's side.

"Can you walk, kid?"

**

_This mental disorder of his must be contagious_, Oscar decided, looking at cross-eyed Diego, who was making downright heroic attempts of walking straight, though with little success, so Oscar had to nudge him in right direction every now and then, helping him to get to his feet every time he lost balance and fell. He couldn't, however, do anything about Diego's nausea, which had him retching and spitting bile every couple of minutes._ No other explanation why I'm doing this. It's contagious. Can't be anything else. It's contagious, and I'm bloody insane like a March hare. Like him._

It soon became obvious that Diego wouldn't be able to make it to the den; he was simply too sick, and he was walking more and more often with closed eyes, staggering and nearly running into trees and rocks that came into his way. His jaws were clenched tight, his expression determinate, but Oscar realized that his stubbornness wouldn't pull him out of this one.

"We'll call it a halt here", Oscar proclaimed, spotting a huge toppled tree, under which trunk there was enough space for Diego to crawl in and hide.

So they both settled down, Diego in the hollow, Oscar in front of it. They both were anxious for some rest; Oscar's muscles and joints were now quite loudly complaining against the strain which they were no longer used to- it had been so long since he'd taken the prey down…but he did it; he smiled at the memory; he did it, Diego hadn't believed that he could, he himself hadn't believed that he could…but he did it…some sleep was now just what he needed…

Just when he was about to drift away, a small, likely involuntary groan from Diego reached his sensitive ears.

He looked up to see what was wrong, and saw Diego fidgeting, frowning, trying to make his head comfortable on the not exactly soft ground. But however he placed it, it seemed to hurt him.

Oh, well. That wasn't Oscar's business. He turned his head away and closed his eyes again.

But he could still hear very quiet sounds of Diego trying to find a soft place for his head. Those sounds were almost inaudible even to a cat's sharp hearing, and under normal circumstances they wouldn't bother Oscar's sleep none…but now he knew who was making them and, more importantly, why; he couldn't ignore them, just as he couldn't ignore the most unwelcome image that passed before his eyes, so vividly that he thought that he'd came down with fever again and was hallucinating once more: his mate and himself, taking turns in lying next to Milo, having him lean his head against his parents' bodies so he could be more comfortable. That was how he spent his last days, and he knew he was dying, but when his mum or dad would curl up with him and licked his muzzle or the length of his skinny little frame, he'd still find strength in himself to smile, showing some of his still-milky teeth.

_Oh, no, no, no, no. Not that. You still have some bloody dignity; you've just started to rebuild it…you're not doing that; he's not your bloody cub!!!_

Another soft, soft moan of pain, and a quiet growl. It was probably in sleep.

_You hate his guts, remember? Treason, associating with prey, being the pack's beta instead of you, et cetera, et cetera? Hello? Reality to Oscar? Anybody home?_

Diego sighed and frowned as if in anger. And he was probably righteously angry at himself. He deserved it. Oscar stared at his prone form, limp and as still as possible. He hadn't seen Diego, his supposed sworn enemy, helpless like this from his cub days, and instead of feeling like gloating, Oscar felt just plain uncomfortable and very much like crashing something.

_No. No. No. No. No. No. No, no, but hell NO!_

He slinked into the hollow next to Diego and shook him roughly. Diego bared his teeth in welcome.

"Lift yer head", Oscar grunted.

"Hmmpffshhh…?"

"Just do it, kid", Oscar growled.

Diego's eyes shot open, wide with surprise, when he realized that his hurting, spinning head was now resting on Oscar's side. "Whaddabloodycrap…?!?"

"Shut up and sleep, kiddo. I want to get some bloody rest, and ain't no way I was ever gonna get some with you squirming non-stop. If your head is OK with this, just sleep at once!"

Diego, outraged-looking, was trying to focus his hazy eyes, that was obvious, but it was seemingly making him increasingly nauseous, because his nose instantly gave a telltale loss of color, and he closed his eyes once again. After several seconds Oscar heard him exhale a small sigh of relief. Apparently, the trick that had worked for Milo, worked for Diego, too.

"Oscar…"

"What on bloody Earth now?!?"

"Y'ever breath a word of this to anyone, an' I swear I'm gonna rip yer lungs out an' have yer bowels dangle from the highest branch of the highest tree in the valley…" even with his pathetic current state, resting his head on his life-long rival's side, the whelp was still able to growl threateningly.

Oscar nearly laughed at this. Now this sounded more like Diego he knew and despised. He was about to say that there was no way he'd ever do something so socially suicidal as telling of this to a living soul, and that he himself would _prefer _having his guts dangling from a tree to anybody knowing about their current embarrassing position any day, but it suddenly occurred to him that he might turn this to his advantage. "I won't…if you promise not to tell anybody, ever, that you, er, cleaned my…my…cleaned after me." It was too bloody unpleasant to remember, let alone speak out loud.

"Deal."

"And that you fed me."

"Deal. An' I won't even tell a soul how y' cried for your momma", came Diego's muffled answer.

Oscar felt blood rising to his ears. A sudden urge to smash Diego's head against the tree trunk and finish what elk had sorely failed to finish overcame him with alarming intensity. "Ah, so you remember that, you ugly piece of dung, but you can't remember how, only an hour ago, an elk got your butt kicked and your head nearly split open…only nearly, too bad…"

"Gotta have some insssurrrance…" slurred Diego, sleepily, though Oscar was certain that he caught a glimpse of a sly grin.

"Just bloody sleep, boy, before I throttle you! I'm warning you here!"

"Yeah, _dad_…"

The sarcasm was fairly noticeable, and Oscar was sure that Diego didn't mean to provoke an influx of feelings like this in Oscar. He'd wanted to rile him up further, but he didn't. Oscar's throat got all cramped up, and he felt every hair on is body stand; he hadn't been called that for too long now, and he had no idea that he'd missed it this much…to make the things worse, it was exactly like this that his cub would sleep against him, and he was ill, too, and only Oscar's mate was now missing to complete the picture…those had been easily the most painful, sorrow-filled days of Oscar's life, competed only by the time when half of Soto's pack was killed by humans, Oscar's mate among them…why, _why _did the bastard have to get his head smashed and make Oscar's life complicated in process?

_I miss my pack. And I miss my mate. And I miss my kids. I bloody miss them all so much that it hurts. And this runt here had to rub some salt into the wounds…_

Diego's breathing was now even and slow. No more fidgeting. Oscar sighed and rested his own head on his front paws.

_I really gotta stop leading these inner battles with myself. Why trying at all? I always lose._


	8. Chapter 7

Diego had proven himself to be a quick bouncer. Oscar hadn't expected him to be able to walk straight for days after such blow to the head, but already the next day he was on his legs, as wobbly as they were, and walked to the nearest pool of water to drink. That done, he announced, squinting his eyes against the light, the nausea and the headache, that he really should be returning to his herd. He'd been away too long.

"Are you insa…no, I better not ask that", Oscar raised his eyebrows incredulously. "You're not going anywhere yet, kid. It's a two hours trip at best of times. Get back to the hollow and sleep again. I'll be around."

"Since when d'you think you have the right to order me around, oldtimer?"

Well, his pleasant disposition is definitely back…"Since you puked all over my paws, I think. Now move, Diego, or I'll move you!"

"Not so long ago you were lapping up the contents of my stomach without any complaint", spat Diego. Oscar cringed at the vague memory of what he'd thought was the hallucination of being fed with regurgitated meat. Yep, pleasant disposition plus the knack for hitting where it hurt the most…the bastard was getting better all right.

"Well, maybe I should go and bring your buddies here, since you miss them so much? Then they'd take care of you, and I would be free to go my way! How 'bout that?"

"NO!" roared Diego, staggering and closing his eyes again, gulping, and continuing: "Don't you even think about that! Let them be!"

"I wouldn't harm them, darn it, I gave a friggin' oath! I just-"

"NO!"

Diego breathed fast, his nose was almost white now, his eyes desperately trying to focus on Oscar, though he was giving the impression of seeing at least three Oscars at the same time. He snarled properly, however.

"What is it, Diego? Afraid that your best buddies might find out how you got your head busted? That you're…oops, my dear goodness…a _carnivore_? My, my…and I thought that you guys shared absolute _trust_." _Oh, that felt good. I haven't lost my touch yet._

"They know what I am", glowered Diego, whose legs appeared to be less and less reliable by second, but was staring darkly in Oscar's general direction nonetheless.

"Do they?"

"Just because I don't retail the stories of my hunts to them, doesn't mean that I have them believing I live on air and water. They're not stupid. You should know that, since they outsmarted you at Half Peak just royally!"

"_You _outsmarted us at Half Peak royally!" roared Oscar; the world seemed to be getting redder with dizzying speed. "You think I don't know it was _you _who plotted and orchestrated that con? It has your name all over it! Those two wouldn't think of it if they got to live seventeen lives…"

"Nice of you to admit that you've been outsmarted", grinned Diego with bared teeth. "Happens to the best of us, let alone to the likes of you…"

Oscar decided to ignore his own poisonous barb from some weeks earlier being pointed back at him. "I thought you were _sorry _for what happened there!" he sneered." Didn't know you found it so bloody amusing! Too bad Soto can't enjoy the joke, and for all we know, maybe Lenny and Zeke can't either…"

Diego made a step towards Oscar, head lowered. It would have looked threatening if his step wasn't more of a stagger, and, despite all the glowering, he clearly had difficulties focusing.

"I am sorry…for Soto", he whispered, and whether the pain that crossed his face was attributable to his emotions or the lump on his head, Oscar could say it was genuine. "I didn't want that to happen."

"Yeah, I know", Oscar leaned into his face, growling. "You wanted to save everybody, right? That's what you do; you save things, worth it or not, reasonable or not, you save things, right? Well, here is some news for you, kid: _you can't save everybody_! Whatever kind of messiah complex you have in that messed-up head of yours, you better get rid of it, 'cause it's bloody bad for your health! Or you haven't noticed that each time you try to save something, you end up close to getting killed?!? Stop pretending that you're…whatever is that you're pretending to be, and be what nature saw it fit to make you!"

Diego took his time looking at winded Oscar, whose fur was standing on his neck, stiff as wire, and who was now panting more heavily than yesterday after he'd made that kill.

"Excuse me", Diego suddenly muttered and staggered into the nearest clump of bushes; Oscar cringed at the less-than-successfully muffled sound of Diego's stomach expelling that little water that it contained.

"That's what you get when you won't listen to someone who knows what he's talking about!" Oscar said sternly when Diego emerged from the bushes, exhausted -looking, nose very pale. "Now wait a few moments, drink again, and then we're heading for the hollow without a word! That's how you-"

"Did he suffer?"

Now this Oscar did not expect. But when was anything about Diego…expectable?

_Did he suffer…_image of Milo came to Oscar again; small, skinny, not able to swallow in those last few days, eyes closed, letting out only small whining sounds. _Yes, darn it, he did bloody suffer…_

"Did Soto suffer, Oscar, what do you think?" Diego repeated through clenched teeth when Oscar failed to answer immediately.

Ah. _Soto_. Of course. Oscar's heartbeat came in irregular beats now. One-and-two…and three…five…for-and-six…

"Well, I guess not. You were there longer than me, you should know better…"

"I was too far away from him to see him well, and when I managed to get up, I…he was dead all right then, but what if he didn't die instantly? What if he lived for minutes after the icicles-"

"Not likely. I'd say he didn't have the time to know what happened to him", Oscar said quickly, because Diego's green eyes had grown impossibly large; this had obviously been troubling him ever since. Oscar didn't want to know the nightmares that were born out of this line of thought. "I mean, one of those went right through his eye. You don't live any longer after that, no matter how many lives you got left."

Diego continued to stare at Oscar, his breathing ragged.

"Look, son, don't fret over it; it's pointless. What was done, is done. He's dead and that's the end of it. No use in pondering over it any longer. It will only drive you even madder than you already are, and you sure don't need any more of that. Now do as I say for once and drink again. And don't talk. And then you get back to that darn hole of yours."

"I'm not your son", Diego pointed out quietly.

"Bloody figure of speech, whelp. If I had a son anything like you, I'd have my balls severed off, for precaution's sake. Didn't I just tell you to shut up?"

**

Quick bouncer all right…Oscar had his impression confirmed next morning when, returning from a short patrol, he found Diego waiting for him, seated in front of the toppled tree, licking his lips and growling under his breath: "You better show me where you hid that carcass, 'cause I'm so bloody starved that I might try chewing on your sorry hide if it wasn't so darn ugly!"

"Good to hear you're as coherent as ever; and follow me, witless whelp", Oscar answered in the same manner.

From that moment on, Diego's condition was improving with frightening speed. Oscar had been certain that he'd need at least two weeks to restore his health, if not more, but after three days, Diego was not only on his feet, walking nervous circles in front of the hollow, apparently completely coherent, focused and orientated, but with a firm decision to return to his herd that very day. Oscar knew better than trying to stop him; first, because he knew it would be pointless, and second, because he wanted to hunt something all by himself, without a witness if he fails. He knew that his time here was very nearly over, and he needed to know that he was indeed capable of hunting alone. That aside, most of his thoughts were now moving in the direction of Zeke and Lenny, wherever they might be. Until that point, he had his mind pretty much preoccupied with his own survival, but now that his ultimate demise no longer seemed so close at hand, it was those two runts that he was getting obsessed with finding. Alive or dead, but he was going to find them if that was the last thing he'd ever do; as irritating as they might sometimes be, they had accepted him as their leader without an iota of doubt when things fell apart, they followed him faithfully and with respect, they went through thick and thin with him, and he wasn't going to turn his back on them. They weren't remotely as resourceful as Diego; alone, leaderless, their chances of survival were slimmer by day. If they survived the flood in the first place.

So when he found himself standing above a freshly killed musk ox calf four days later, breathless, aching all over, lightheaded with exertion and thrill, but victorious, he knew that the time to hit the road has come.

Diego had found Oscar right before dawn of the sixth day, awake, in front of the den where he'd spent all those weeks coughing up blood and pus. It would have been logical if he despised the place now, but strangely, he didn't. He had somehow gotten used to it. Pity it was on Diego's territory and he'll have to abandon it.

"About bloody time, kid", Oscar snarled when Diego's eyes, glowing green in the semi-dark of the dawn, appeared soundlessly in front of him. "I was thinking about taking off without notice."

"You have a little more sense for dramatic."

"Dramatic, my tail. I wanted to ask if I could use this den if I'm ever in the neighborhood again."

"Yeah, but you'll have to come to me first. I don't want any saber crossing my territory just like that. Understood?" Diego asked sternly, giving Oscar a sharp look.

"Um. Yeah. So…"

They went silent, looking in opposite directions.

"Don't forget your oath", spoke Diego finally, expression unreadable. "If you break it…"

"…yeah, yeah, I know. Torture, slow death and so. And I could never forget that oath. I bet I'm the first carnivore ever who swore to something like that. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't been there."

"Good."

_Well, I should start walking now…_

Still, he felt like he should say something appropriate, something that would cover those past few months…but what to say to a weirdo like Diego? He still didn't know if he wanted more to wring his neck, or to ask him to join his old pack- well, the remnants of it- once again. Oscar could really use some help searching for Lenny and Zeke…

Stupid, he knew. Diego would never abandon his herd, that much was obvious. Whatever they were providing him with that his pack couldn't have provided was beyond Oscar, but that was how things like Diego's mind worked- inexplicable, unpredictable and beyond logic and reason. And besides, Lenny and Zeke, if still alive, would never accept Diego back again. Not even Oscar's authority would be enough to convince them. To them, he'd still be the traitor that should be put down; even if they were told about the extreme circumstances that they didn't know about- like, Diego owing a life debt to the mammoth, or about Diego's failed plan to keep both sides alive and well- they still wouldn't trust him. They weren't brought back to life by Diego like Oscar had been; they hadn't been given water to drink from water-soaked moss, they hadn't have their crap cleaned by him, they hadn't been brought food on regular basis, hadn't hunted with him, hadn't been puked on their paws by him, hadn't seen him lying like Oscar's dead son…

"You gonna try to find Zeke and Lenny?" Diego asked.

"Yeah. If they're still alive."

"You do that. Those two need somebody to lead them, and you're the guy."

"Yeah."

"I'd tell you to send them my regards, but I don't think it's a good idea."

"Heck, no! The day I tell them about anything here is the day I need my head checked out. All they'll ever know is that I was injured and I got better. No way I'd ever tell anybody, especially them, that you've cleaned my waste for me, or…other stuff. I'd never bloody live it."

Diego smiled. "Understandable."

"And they better never find out that I saw you and let you live. I'd never live that, either, but literally so. Lenny is a good kid, but he could finish me off just by sitting on me." Oscar subtly shuddered at the thought.

Diego's smile widened. "You know, I was actually afraid of that happening when Lenny and I played as cubs."

"I never knew that", chuckled Oscar. Though he was feeling a bit…melancholic, in fact. They lived together in a pack for all that time, and yet they knew so little about one another. When Diego was a cub, Oscar had no particular interest in him, and as soon as he grew up, it became obvious that Soto was favoring him above all others - above Oscar, precisely - for the position of beta, and they swiftly became rivals. It took all this crap to happen for Oscar to realize how much Diego reminded him of Milo, even if they were nothing alike; runts, both of them, each in his own way…only Diego was still alive.

If he was going to be completely honest…he was sorry he hadn't realized it earlier.

"Ummm…" he spoke to end his this line of thought of his, "…so…"

_Aw, heck. This is gonna be…painful._

"…er…thanks…for, er, saving my skin, and all."

"Not at all", Diego shifted rather uncomfortably. "I didn't do anything much, I just gave you water and food. You beat the illness yourself. My help would have meant nothing if you were weaker."

"Yeah, but _that _didn't stop you from making me give the blood oath!"

It was Diego's turn to chuckle. "Didn't hurt to try."

"Hrmpf…Listen, by the way, you do know that all saber prides on the continent have heard of you by now, and they all wish you slow and painful death. You're an outcast, and any saber with an iota of pride and courage will try to kill you on spot as soon as they realize who you are. So, watch your back and keep away from our kind."

"I already know all that, but thanks."

They spent several more moments in silence, before Oscar decided that he really should be going. Lenny and Zeke might be in need for some help right now.

"Well, that's it", he said. "I better move."

"Right."

Oscar forced himself to meet Diego's eyes. The younger tiger was still smiling. A very unusual sight- at least, for Oscar. He couldn't help but cracking a little smile of his own.

"Never thought I'd say this, Diego, but it was good to be hunting with you again."

"Never thought I'd say this, but same here, Oscar."

"Good luck, kid."

"You too, oldtimer."

And so they parted ways.


	9. Chapter 8

Diego approached his friends' usual sleeping place with light step as the early morning was painting the sky in reddish colors. All of them still sound asleep…good. The less they knew, the less they had to worry about. Or to question him about.

They had noticed his times of absence, of course. When the whole thing had started, he'd told them that he had some personal business to do that might take a while and that would keep him occupied for long stretches of time. He refused to develop the matter further, claiming it personal. Manny and Ellie, as expected, respected that and didn't pry any more. Just as expected, Sid pressed, and came up with the brilliant idea that Diego must have had a girlfriend somewhere. The fact that Diego was at first so stunned at how bad Sid's guessing had been that he only gaped and didn't deny it only confirmed Sid's suspicions. That, naturally, caused Crash and Eddie to go into hysterics of laughter and to tease the tiger so much that he actually preferred Oscar's vitriolic company than theirs. Now Diego had to smile at the memory, particularly when he imagined Oscar's enraged response at Sid's folly. He would be more than angry; he would be murderous.

Yeah. Well. It had been good hunting alongside another tiger again. Loads easier, and the pride a hunter felt after a successful hunt was ten times greater if he had a comrade to share it with.

And he was impossibly glad that at least one member of his own kind wasn't going to try to throttle him as soon as they hear his name.

Ah, whatever. The oldtimer was on his way now. Diego hoped that he'd be able to hunt alone, though he didn't worry much about that; Oscar was a survivor, always had been.

He was stirred from his sleep when the other herd members started to wake up - precisely, when Eddie ran over his head in pursue for Crash. After calling the possums several unspeakable names, he realized that Sid, while chewing on some fruit for breakfast, was looking at him intently.

"What?" he snarled at the sloth. His head was still hurting from the concussion, though not nearly as bad as before, and he wanted to be left alone and sleep.

"Coming back so early? You usually stay much longer at…wherever you stay."

Trust it to Sid to choose one single time in his life to be perceptive exactly when Diego found it inconvenient.

"My job is done. I won't be absent for so long anymore. Now let me sleep."

"Oh", the look on Sid's face was, darn it, sympathetic. "She, um, dumped you?"

"Sid", growled Diego warningly, "leave me alone."

"Okay, okay…no need to get nasty. I know how you feel." He patted Diego's aching head, to the tiger's pain and irritation. "But when you're ready to talk, I'm here."

Diego watched him waddle away with a soft expression that Sid could no longer see.

Yeah, that was true, Diego knew. Sid _would _be there. No doubt about that.

And then Manny came to Diego's side, munching on large piles of leaves that he plucked from nearby trees; the branches had been losing their foliage with worrying speed since there had been _two_ mammoths grazing around.

"So..the job done?" Manny asked quietly.

"Yep."

"Good. About time, too. 'cause it was doing you no good." He paused. "So, he's gone?"

Diego's eyes wildly widened. "Wha…? How do…what you…"

"Oh…a little bird whispered in my ear…that there was a sick saber up in the Rock hills, and that you were helping him around…"

Manny didn't look at Diego as he spoke; apparently he found something at the clear blue sky very interesting.

"You've been spying on me?" Diego snarled under his breath. Oh, this was just…this wasn't going to…

"No, no, it was kinda…accidental."

"_Accidental_?"

"Yeah…see, I overheard some vultures complaining about 'the wretched tiger refusing to die', and since you were away at the time, I _really _wanted to know what they were talking about."

"Oh…"

Well, now he felt downright stupid.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Manny whispered, watching Ellie chasing Crash and Eddie around.

"Didn't want you to worry about having another predator around. I had him in check."

"That's all?" the mammoth looked sideways at Diego.

Diego was reluctant to tell Manny that he had been afraid that his friends might doubt his loyalty because he'd chosen to help another carnivore, particularly one that had once upon the time been in close pursuit after Sid and Manny and had every intention of finishing them off.

"Cats prefer to die hidden, away from everybody. If I was dying I wouldn't want a bunch of animals crowding over me to see just when exactly am I going to snuff out."

Manny seemed to ponder this. "So…someone you knew from…before...?"

"Actually, you know him too. One of my old packmates. He got injured in the flood, and it looked quite bad for some time."

Manny nodded. Diego expected outrage, anger, disbelief, but none came. "Um…the others…"

"…don't know. Figured you had a good reason for keeping quiet."

Diego let out a slow breath. Really, you had to respect a guy like Manny.

"He better?" Manny asked, almost casually.

"Healed."

"Gone now?"

"On his way."

"Permanently?"

"Should be."

"Should we be worried?"

"Nope."

"You trust him?"

"Yep."

"Anything…else you want to say about it all?"

Diego paused. "No, not really."

"All right with me, then. Well, gonna have some breakfast with Ellie. See ya later."

And he started walking away, but paused for a second. "How long did that all last? Three months?"

"Something like that, yeah. Maybe a bit more."

Manny's mouth gave a funny little twitch. To Diego's immense surprise and relief, his eyes weren't chastising. They were warm.

"Yer a good guy, Diego."

He walked away after that, and Diego, who watched Manny's retreating back, was now free to sleep. And he sure needed it.

_Yer a good guy, Diego_.

He smiled.

_Thanks, buddy._

END


End file.
